COVID-19 testing is more available than ever as more and more patients have access to multiple testing types. However, patients need to make sure that their nearby urgent care providers and testing facilities have ample testing supplies. Finding a local clinic that provides testing may be much easier than finding a clinic that has all your testing needs available.

AFC Urgent Care North Andover provides both COVID-19 swab testing and coronavirus antibody testing for patients. Each testing types helps patients to determine if they have an active infection and if they have effectively recovered from a previous COVID-19 infection.

Below, we’ll dive into the factors that patients need to find a well-stocked clinic or urgent care provider for COVID-19 testing as well as the types of tests available. If you believe you have the novel coronavirus, or if you recorved and need an antibody test, then contact our team today!

Clinics may have limited supplies: check online searches

COVID-19 testing is available in most public health centers, urgent care centers, and hospital campuses. But patients need to understand that COVID testing may be extremely limited within certain healthcare facilities.

Certain medical campus may only have one type of COVID-19 test since they are only trying to detect active infections and perform contact tracing: a medical activity that involves taking counts of all active infections. Many local urgent care providers can offer patients either swab testing or antibody testing by appointment.

Always double check with the medical facility you are looking to get tested at and see what testing type is best for you.

Antibody Testing helps patients determine COVID-19 immunity

An antibody test, or serology test, allows a patient to detect the presence of COVID-19 antibodies from a prior coronavirus infection. Antibody tests are ideal for patients that had a previous COVID infection or are planning a return to work in the near future.

A patient that books antibody testing for COVID-19 will recieve a blood draw that allows medical staff to examine their current antibodies. The presence of antibodies means that a patient had been previously infected by COVID-19 but recovered fully.

Antibody tests are useful for healthy patients that likely had an asymptomatic case of coronavirus, are aiming to return to work, and may need to determine if they recovered from a previous case.

Swab testing tests for an active infection of coronavirus

Swab testing and PCR COVID-19 testing help providers detect an active coronavirus infection in a patient. Swab testing is ideal to help with contact tracing, counting a community’s total coronavirus cases, and helping patients determine quarantine and follow up care.

A swab test is done by administering a cotton swab into the nose or mouth of a patient. A provider then uses the sample from the swab to determine if a patient has an active COVID-19 infection. Patients that benefit from COVID-19 swab tests are anyone that has made contact with a patient that has a known infection and/or has traveled to a COVID-19 hotspot in the last 14 days.

Additionally, any patient that has more of the following symptoms and exposure to additional risks includes the following:

• Fatigue and Fever
• Coughing
• Sneezing
• Congestion
• Headache and new loss of taste or smell
• Difficulty breathing
• Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea