Huntsville’s stand-alone COVID-19 drive-thru testing site will not open as planned on Monday because of a lack of supplies, Huntsville Hospital CEO David Spillers said Saturday.

Spillers said the hope is the test site at John Hunt Park will be equipped to open on Tuesday.

The closure is a sign of anticipated strains on supplies as the coronavirus spreads throughout the country. In Madison County, where Huntsville is located, positive tests have almost tripled since Wednesday.

Spillers attributed the jump to increased testing. He said between 200 and 300 people were tested daily at the John Hunt Park site off Airport Road as the clinic operated from Monday through Friday.

Those in need of COVID-19 testing can go to the hospital's fever & flu clinic at 120 Governors Drive near Huntsville Hospital. A mobile test unit is also operating in north Huntsville.

Beyond the shortage of test kits, Spillers said the hospital is in good shape. A surge of COVID-19 inpatients, however, is the concern. Spillers said that treating COVID-19 patients typically requires about 10 times the amount of supplies and equipment as a non-COVID patient. COVID patients usually spend 10 days or more hospitalized, further straining resources.

"As we look out two weeks, based on the current patients we're treating, we're in good shape," he said. "If the volume of inpatient goes up, that's when you start straining the supply chain.

“We want to stock but we don’t want to hoard. It’s a delicate balance. You don’t want to take supplies away from places like Birmingham and New Orleans where they’ve got to have them right now. But you want to have adequate supply for our community when the time comes.”

Huntsville Hospital has about 500 vacant beds at this point through discharges and allocating pre- and post-operative spaces for patients, Spillers said. An alternative the hospital has started to consider are the use of hotels, he said.