LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kroger Field in Lexington is looking to expand its testing location once again after seeing an increase in demand over the last few weeks. 

For over a year now, Ashley Whitley has worked for Wild Health as a COVID-19 testing specialist testing people as they’ve come through the drive-thru site. 

“It’s been crazy, to say the least,” Whitley said.

And crazy is just one of the many things Whitley says workers are feeling after seeing an increase in appointments over the last three weeks. 

“We went from having like four people in the shed and having maybe 100-200 appointments per day to now like 1,000 appointments a day and being like, 'Hey, we need a little more help with staffing because before it was only four of us.' You know, and it was manageable because only a few cars are coming to time and now we have the line all the way down the road,” Whitley said.

Harper Ford, the clinical site director, says when the testing first started, Kroger Field had 10 lines for cars to go through. Over the last few months, those lines dropped down to two.

Ford now says they are working to increase their staff as fast as possible. 

“We have appointments made out for a very long time, we should continue to see this for a while, but we're working to get more people in more lanes so that we can test more people,” Ford said.

Ford says Kroger Field was testing around 400 people a day and on July 20, 2021 is when they saw their first spike with over a thousand appointments a day. 

“We had 400 people get tested before 1 p.m. on last Friday, and that positivity rate is 10.81%, so that's 37 positives, just alone in that batch,” Ford said.

Whitley says they’re prepared for hard work and long hours, but she’s glad people are taking precautions and getting tested. 

“It's been a lot of work for us and trying to manage it and trying to keep things as efficient as it was before has been kind of a challenge,” Whitley said.

Kroger Field testing will continue their appointments from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. daily.