Same day COVID-19 test results begin in Bowling Green

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – After months of waiting, it’s here. Same day testing results for the coronavirus have officially begun in Bowling Green.

Waiting for two to five days for COVID-19 test results will soon to be a thing of the past.

Graves Gilbert Clinic has rolled out a new SARS antigen test that takes just a few minutes, according to Dr. Zaiba Moledina, a doctor at Graves Gilbert Clinic.

“It’s not as painful and it’s not as uncomfortable as the previous tests used to be. The good thing about these tests are that the turn around time is very quick. Once we start processing it, it takes about 15 minutes for the results to come back,” said Moledina.

The test rolled out officially for WKU students and for the Bowling Green Independent Schools on Monday and in only 48 hours, 120 students were tested.

This is a huge step for Bowling Green to receive same day testing. It allows for quicker diagnosis which gets people quarantined or back to work faster, according to Chris Thorn, the chief executive officer of Graves Gilbert Clinic.

“The beauty about rapid testing is it really helps, when you identify somebody, it really helps with tracing. Because the time is such, lets face it, high school kids and college kids, they are very active. They move around a lot. They have big social circles. So, getting something quick so we can trace them and identify what that social circle is and try to quarantine it as quickly as possible,” said Thorn.

Here’s how it works. A person will be handed a swab, which that person will swirl around in each nostril three times.

Then, the medical worker will take the swab and run it through a SARS antigen test, and in just 15 minutes, the results show up on the screen.

“It works really well if the patient is symptomatic and within the first five days of being symptomatic and if the patient is symptomatic then the accuracy almost up to 96% accurate,” said Moledina.

And with flu season coming, Thorn has a message to the public.

“We want to make sure; the flu season is coming right up and it’s extremely important that people get their flu shots this year. You do not want to be in a situation where you get the flu and COVID at the same time. That is not something that your body will like at all,” said Thorn.

Graves Gilbert will begin offering those flu shots Sept. 21.

Graves Gilbert is working on getting the number of tests needed to open it up to the general public, but Thorn expects to have the antigen tests available to the public sometime next week.