How drive-through coronavirus tests work

In addition to county residents, the others eligible to have their throats swabbed for COVID-19 at the site are patients of Virginia Hospital Center, Arlington County employees and Arlington

Public Schools employees, the hospital said. Dickerson, who hails from North Carolina, told reporters that she, like others, watched TV and saw the outbreak unfold around the world —

worried for her safety, her family's and that of her nurses. She oversees about 1,100 nurses in the 394-bed hospital. IF YOU TEST POSITIVE People who test positive, she said, should

isolate themselves in a room, drink fluids, watch their fever and take care of themselves. But they should avoid seeking emergency medical treatment unless it is warranted — for example, for

shortness of breath. (For more, see the CDC's guidance on what to do if you are sick.) Speaking as a nurse, she said, she was “just really proud” of her team for being able to provide

a service to the community. And she thanked Arlington County, its police force and hospital personnel, saying efficiencies were learned on day one and adaptations are being and will continue

to be made. People who took the test were not identified. Dickerson even declined to say whether her hospital had treated COVID-19 patients. The press was restricted to the perimeter of the

drive-through site. ARLINGTON COUNTY LEADS THE STATE IN CASES As of Thursday, Arlington County had surpassed all other counties in the state for COVID-19 cases, with 17. Virginia's

most populous county, Fairfax County, home to 1.14 million people, had the second largest number of cases, with 16. Arlington County is the state's 10th largest county, with about

232,000 residents. Located across the Potomac River from the District of Columbia, the county is home to the Pentagon, attacked on 9/11. And there was chitchat about those attacks among the

media Wednesday as they braced for what may come next in the pandemic. According to the Virginia Department of Health, 1,923 people in the state had been tested as of Thursday and

coronavirus was confirmed in 94 cases. Two people in Virginia have died as a result of contracting the respiratory pathogen, and there have been 19 hospitalizations, the agency said.