New COVID-19 testing site to open at Delaware State University in New Castle County

NEW CASTLE COUNTY, Delaware (WPVI) -- A $5 million COVID-19 testing lab will soon be up and running at Delaware State University's Kirkwood Highway Campus in New Castle County as cases across the country soar.

Daily COVID-19 cases in the US for the first time are more than 139,000.

DSU Director of Bioinfomatics Dr. Derrick Scott said, "I'm hoping at Delaware State we can be a light in the community and say 'OK' we're going to say this is going to be something we're going to take control of."

The goal is to help lower costs for testing to no more than $5 and make sure people can get their results within a day.

The efforts are being funded by the county's CARES Act, and as of right now in New Castle County, tests run people $90-$150.

Finding out if you have COVID-19 can take several days.

The Tri-State is seeing new cases at similar rates. In Pennsylvania, there are 3,424 new cases per day, 2,515 new cases per day in New Jersey, and Delaware with a much smaller population, 214 new cases per day.

The new site will start processing COVID-19 tests in December, and efforts will ramp up after the new year, which Delaware State experts say will be crucial for this upcoming flu season.

"People are going to be in more enclosed encounters and it's an environment that's really good for people to spread diseases," said Scott.

Between more testing and hopefully a vaccine, Delaware State University hopes to play a major role in fighting COVID 19.

"If we can decrease the amount of people who are active and they're out in the community spreading, then that's really going to help us reach that goal of getting cases down so we can get life back to normal," Scott added.