Over the past few months, Walmart has been working with Federal, State and Local leaders to establish drive-thru COVID-19 testing in Walmart parking lots. Walmart opened an additional testing site on June 12 in the parking lot of the Walmart store located at 1300 Des Plaines Ave, Forest Park, IL 60130. This initiative will not require any additional local resources and will not impact traffic since it is by appointment only.


Walmart COVID-19 Testing Logistics


Site Logistics:

  • Drive-thru Testing (appointment only): Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for two hours each morning (7:00 am to 9:00 am); approximately 40 tests per day.
  • Site layout: conex container to house tests, PPE, sanitary supplies and traffic cones for minimal queuing.
  • The current plan is to have this site operating on Thursday June 11 (soft-launch) and open to the public on Friday, June 12.
  • Registration Portal: www.doineedacovid19test.com

Testing Process:

  • Self-administered swab observed by a trained pharmacist.
  • Those who want to be tested will register online and receive an appointment time.
  • There is no cost to the individual.
  • Those tested receive a designated appointment time-frame; we have found the lines to be fairly short and orderly. Testing process takes approximately 5 minutes per car.
  • A Walmart pharmacist will observe patients at our site performing a COVID-19 self-swab nasal test inside their vehicle.
  • The specimens will be collected, sent to a lab for results and reported to the state health department by our lab partners.
  • Lab partner on these sites would be eTrueNorth; they are one of the labs on contracted with the feds.
  • Those being tested will be notified of their test results within 3 to 5 days and instructed how to proceed should they test positive.
  • No lab results are actually run or provided at this time on site so we do not need CLIA certification is being sought.
  • Here are some additional details of what Walmart is doing: https://corporate.walmart.com/covid19testing
  • And here is an example from HHS of the self-administration of the test: https://youtu.be/vsQVxsQY3jc