(Reuters) – CVS Health Corp said on Thursday it would open more COVID-19 testing sites at some of its pharmacy drive-thru locations, completing the last leg of the drugstore chain’s planned 1,000 sites across more than 30 U.S. states.
Health authorities have been emphasizing the need to expand testing capacity as the United States attempts to recover from the respiratory illness that has killed over 100,000 people in the country, according to a Reuters tally.
CVS and other U.S. retailers including Walgreens Boots Alliance, Walmart Inc and Target Corp have pledged to provide space at their parking lots for such drive-through sites to help ramp up testing.
The new CVS sites, which will open on Friday, add to the over 50 locations the company rolled out earlier this month across Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
CVS said it aims at processing up to 1.5 million tests per month, beginning June.
(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
