By Tim Mastro

DELAWARE CITY — Delaware’s free mass COVID-19 testing site closed up shop on Thursday — 11 days earlier than originally scheduled.

Part of the reasoning was due to weather. Appointments were canceled for the weekend and people were asked to come Thursday night instead because of the nor’easter which hit the state Friday night into Saturday afternoon.

But the demand for COVID-19 tests is not where it was at the beginning of the month, which led to the decision to shut down the site, located at the Delaware City Division of Motor Vehicles, early. Sunday was going to be the final day of operation before the weather forced the adjustment to Thursday.

Only 164 tests were processed at the DMV on Thursday. There were 2,564 tests done at the site since it opened on Jan. 17.

The state first announced its intention to set up a site through a partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency back on Jan. 4 when the state was averaging more than 60,000 tests per week. But the logistics to set up the location prevented it from opening until two weeks later.

“The demand was there,” said Delaware Emergency Management Agency director A.J. Schall. “I think if you look at the numbers from the end of last year and first week of this year we were getting a lot of requests and feedback about not being able to get a timely appointment,”

However appointments at community-based testing sites are easier to find now compared to earlier this month. Mr. Schall added the availability of at-home COVID-19 tests in stores is a lot higher at this point than around the holidays when stores were sold out.

“It (the mass testing site) was not taken full advantage of which is good and bad,” Mr. Schall said. “The demand has gone away but we still want to test people so we know what their status is.”

“When you get hit with a 100-year flood it kind of overruns the system,” Gov. John Carney said last week at his COVID-19 press briefing. “It’s really hard to plan to link up supply and demand in an efficient way. I think that is something we’ll look at.”

The state’s other sites, which can be found  here  and here, also had quicker turnaround times for results. Most Curative sites provide results in about 24 hours while the DMV drive-thru site took about 48-72 hours.

Mr. Schall thinks that also played a role in the mass testing site not being utilized as much.

“People don’t want the result 48 hours after they drive through,” he said. “They want it in 15 minutes or the next day.”

The rate of COVID-19 transmission has also steadily decreased over the last couple of weeks, down from all-time highs set in earlier January.

The Delaware Division of Public Health reported 418 individuals hospitalized with the virus in Saturday’s update, which is the lowest total in the last 30 days. It was the fewest hospitalizations since there were 385 on Dec. 25. It is more than 300 less than the state’s record of 759 set on Jan. 12.

Delaware is averaging 1,213.9 cases per day in its seven-day rolling average compared to the peak of 3,381.7 cases per day on Jan. 12.

Closing the site will also allow the state to shift its resources and testing personnel elsewhere.

“I think we have to make sure we utilize our resources correctly,” Mr. Schall said. “If we’re only having 350 individuals go through a day then we can reallocate those individuals to hopefully help us better.”