Jacksonville pharmacist sees rise in COVID-19 testing after surge in cases

DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. — The demand for COVID-19 testing is seeing a major spike for the first time in months with new cases being caused by the Delta variant.

Medtown Pharmacy on Beach Boulevard is seeing dozens of people coming in asking for a COVID-19 test.

Chen Oeur, Medtown’s pharmacist and owner, told Action News Jax it’s been like that for the past three weeks.

“Prior to July 4th, we rarely saw anyone who wanted testing. It kind of faded out. Once July 4th was over, the next day we had a slew of people coming through asking to be tested,” Oeur said.

Medtown Pharmacy administers roughly 30 rapid tests each and half of those test come back positive. The pharmacy also does around 60 PCR tests a day, which they send to TrueNorth to get it analyzed. Those results are email directly to the patients and do not go back to the pharmacy. They sell 20 at-home COVID-19 test kits per day.

Now the pharmacy is starting to get increased calls for the Johnson & Johnson and Moderna vaccine.

Medtown Pharmacy has been vaccinating people since April but over the months, it’s had to waste some of the vials because it didn’t have enough people getting a shot within the six-hour time frame.

“If one patient shows up and we don’t have four more patients to use on, it becomes a waste,” he said.

Oeur is hoping, given the recent surge in cases, more people will start to take this virus more seriously.

At Medtown Pharmacy you don’t need insurance to get a COVID-19 test or vaccine.

“You know with us you can get a free vaccine versus staying in a hospital for five or six days and I can’t imagine what the price is to be in a hospital to get all the oxygen and medication seven days a week,” Oeur said.

To sign up for a COVID-19 vaccine or test, you can click HERE.

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