Editor's Note
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While most airports are slowing down, the Reading Regional Airport is maintaining business because it’s the headquarters of flight operations for Quest Diagnostics, which is ferrying COVID-19 specimens around the country.
Quest flight operations in Bern Township are running about 30 flights per week transporting coronavirus specimens and other routine samples to laboratories for testing, according to Flightera.net, which tracks air travel.
The closest Quest medical laboratory to Berks County that is equipped to test for the coronavirus is in Teterboro, N.J., a 47-minute flight.
Quest planes are flying samples from the Reading Airport to Teterboro on a weekly basis, with the most recent flight to Teterboro on March 28, according to the Flightera.
Terry Sroka, airport manager, said Quest is running its normal operations, while other business and air traffic is slow.
On Thursday, there were three Quest flights flying into the Reading Airport, one from Pottstown and two others from Manassas, Va., about 26 miles outside Washington, D.C.
In Berks, there are two medical testing sites, which will only test patients who have doctor prescriptions for the test.
The Reading Hospital site is at 1212 Liggett Ave., and Penn State Health St. Joseph has a drive-up testing site on Route 183, across the street from the airport.
Quest couriers pick up the samples and transport them to the airport. Quest employs 3,700 couriers nationwide.
400,000 tests
According to a Quest press release available Thursday, Quest has performed more than 400,000 COVID-19 tests since it opened its first testing analysis site on March 9.
The test samples have moved rapidly into Quest’s 12 analysis sites, creating a backlog of samples, Quest said in its press release. The backlog was down to 115,000 samples as of Wednesday.
The average turnaround time for the results is four to five days.
Quest said the company understands the frustration of having to wait for the results.
“While we are more confident now in our ability to meet demand and report results for COVID-19 testing than in mid-March, when we were still ramping up capacity, this crisis is fluid and unpredictable, and so is the demand for COVID-19 testing,” Quest said.
In addition to Teterboro, other Quest laboratories equipped for coronavirus analysis are in Pittsburgh; San Juan Capistrano and West Hills, both in California; Chantilly, Va.; Marlborough, Mass; Dallas and Lewisville, both in Texas; Lenexa, Kan.; Miami, Fla.; Phoenix, Ariz.; and Wood Dale, Ill.
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