Starting next week, Angelenos can get tested for the coronavirus without first making an appointment.
“That’s right,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. “You don’t need to set up an appointment. Just show up during normal hours of operation.”
The change applies to the city’s eight testing locations, where residents can walk up or drive through for testing.
The city provides free coronavirus testing to all Los Angeles County residents, regardless of insurance status.
The city’s mobile pop-up testing events, which set up in parking lots and on sidewalks around the city, also provide walk-up testing.
Appointments are still required at testing sites run by L.A. County.
Garcetti called testing “one of the tools that has been so effective” in saving lives.
“If you know your status, you know how to communicate with others to help stop the spread, to know what you need to do to isolate or quarantine,” he said.
Since Los Angeles became the first major U.S. city to offer free universal testing to anyone regardless of symptoms, the city has run more than 4 million tests — ”more times than there are people in Los Angeles,” Garcetti said.
