OMNI Healthcare in Melbourne serving as COVID-19 drive-through test site

Coronavirus testing sites opens in Melbourne, UCF

More people are getting tested for the coronavirus because additional testing sites are opening, including one in Melbourne and another at the University of Central Florida.

MELBOURNE, Fla. - Dr. Craig Deligdish, of OMNI Healthcare in Melborne, is excited about helping Central Florida in a time of crisis. He showed us around the complex, at 1344 S. Apollo Blvd., and the lab where kits are being prepared for a drive-through test collection site for COVID-19

On Sunday, OMNI did a practice run, testing first responders and healthcare workers. They processed about 200 tests.

But that is nothing, compared to what what will happen Tuesday and for the rest of the week. The doctor says his team can do up to 1,000 tests daily.

In major cities, test equipment shortages are forcing hospitals to get creative -- making their own kits using 3-D printers to churn out nasopharyngeal swabs and looking in closets for liquid preservatives that can be used to store samples.

Dr. Deligdish says his specimens will have some of those impromptu ingredients, but he has other resources too.

"We have planes that fly three times a day to the laboratories, so we have solved a lot of problems other people have not," he added. "The people at OMNI Medical are resourceful, we have identified supply chains others have not."

Patients meeting eligibility criteria based on OMNI Healthcare’s guidelines are eligible for a nasopharyngeal swab collection at OMNI’s facility in Melbourne. Eligibility requirements include first responders, anyone with minimal symptoms of a cough or low grade fever, age over 45 with one chronic illness or anyone over the age of 60.

To register for a COVID-19 nasal swab test, call 321-802-5515 to be screened and potentially qualified. Once registered and authorized for collection, patients will retrieve their nasal swab kit at the Melbourne drive-through location.

The Melbourne test collecting facility will begin operating on Tuesday, April 7, at 8 a.m. and will run daily thereafter from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information about OMNI Healthcare’s drive-through test collection facility in Melbourne and possible other sites, please refer to www.COVID19testbrevard.com.

A new site has also opened in Orange County at the University of Central Florida. Click here to read more about that testing site and criteria.