Jason Bowling, MD, associate professor of infectious diseases, shares important facts about COVID-19 testing.

Dr. Bowling explains that it is not advised to go to emergency centers at hospitals in San Antonio just for testing.

If you have mild symptoms, there are a number of testing sites throughout the San Antonio area and those sites are listed on the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District’s website.

At this time, the test that you should be looking for is called a direct viral test.

With the growing number of cases, there are more people who know somebody who has COVID-19 or may have been potentially exposed.

Exposure is being within six feet of somebody with the COVID-19 disease for more than 15 minutes.

If you’ve been exposed and develop any symptoms or signs of infection, you should get tested right away. If you don’t have any signs or symptoms, the recommendation is to wait eight days before getting tested.

Dr. Bowling says it takes a while for this virus, which causes COVID-19, to replicate enough to detect with a test.

“This is not going away until we start to see more social distancing, masking and some of these interventions that will help to flatten the curve,” said Dr. Bowling.

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