WOONSOCKET — A new weapon in the battle against COVID-19 launched Monday when CVS Health opened a drive-through testing site in Lincoln capable of delivering results in minutes.

The site, outside Twin River Casino, can process and deliver results for as many as 1,000 tests a day, CVS says.

There is no charge for the tests.

“Today marks a giant leap forward in our efforts to combat this virus,” Gov. Gina Raimondo said in announcing the new site with CVS leaders. “Thanks to the partnership and generosity of CVS Health, we will be able to double our testing capacity and provide on-the-spot results to thousands of Rhode Islanders each day. Making testing rapid and readily available is the key to slowly reopening our economy, and today we are one step closer to that goal.”

People seeking to be tested must meet criteria established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “in addition to state residency and age guidelines,” CVS said in a news release. People also must preregister at CVS.com to schedule a same-day time slot for testing, the company said. The CDC guidelines will be available there, too. A doctor’s note is not required for those who meet the CDC and CVS guidelines.

During her daily news conference early Monday afternoon, Raimondo spelled out other criteria: People seeking a test at the CVS site must be 18 or older, have symptoms, and need to go to work or otherwise need a fast result. And, she said, only Rhode Island residents are eligible.

For children younger than 18, she said, parents or guardians need to follow the initial protocol of first calling their doctor or pediatrician — or lacking that, an urgent-care center or community health center.

The site will be manned by licensed health-care providers from MinuteClinic, the CVS retail medical clinic. The rapid testing is made possible with the new “Abbott ID NOW” COVID-19 test, which the federal Food and Drug Administration recently authorized for emergency use in the pandemic.

According to CVS, “positive results can be delivered in as little as five minutes and negative results in as little as 13 minutes.”

TO OUR READERS: This content is being provided for free as a public service during the coronavirus outbreak. Sign up for our daily or breaking newsletters to stay informed. Please support local journalism by subscribing to The Providence Journal.

Joe Goode, senior director of corporate communications for CVS, explained to The Journal how the testing works.

“When the patient arrives at the testing site for their appointment, the patient will collect a sample of nasal secretions using a self-administered nasal swab, while they remain in their vehicle,” Goode said. “The patient will then be directed to a waiting area in their vehicle, to await the test results.”

The Abbott ID Now technology then processes the sample, and “once the test result is available, a health-care professional will locate the patient in their vehicle to provide their test results, which will enable patients to receive results on-site along with a treatment plan and direction on appropriate actions to take related to quarantine and exposure tracing.”

Goode said, “The process will take approximately 30 minutes from the collection of the swab to the delivery of the results.”

A similar site will open in Atlanta, and both will incorporate the experience of a CVS testing site that opened on March 19 in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.

“For example, testing at these new sites will be held in large parking lots that are easily accessible and able to accommodate multiple lanes of cars at one time and will require eligible individuals to pre-register online,” CVS said on Monday. “COVID-19 testing will not take place at CVS Pharmacy or MinuteClinic locations.”

Said Dr. Troyen Brennan, CVS Health chief medical officer and executive vice president:

“Our MinuteClinic providers join countless other heroic health-care professionals across the country and around the world in forming the first line of defense against this devastating virus. Thanks to our partnerships with state officials and the utilization of advanced technology, our providers will be able to test large numbers of people in these states and make real-time decisions about treatment and appropriate next steps.”

In a news release, Marc Crisafulli, executive vice president of Twin River Worldwide Holding, said: “We are pleased to offer Twin River Casino Hotel in Lincoln as a rapid COVID-19 drive through testing site. We are supporting the efforts of the RI Department of Health, CVS Health, the Rhode Island State Police and the RI National Guard to ensure as smooth a testing experience as possible.

Questions and answers about coronavirus.

gwmiller@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7380

On Twitter: @gwaynemiller