MARLBOROUGH – The Stop the Spread COVID-19 testing site at the New England Sports Center in Marlborough will close later this month.
Marlborough Hospital, which has helped operate the site, confirmed this news on Tuesday after Gov. Charlie Baker previously announced plans to close all but 11 Stop the Spread locations across Massachusetts.
The Marlborough site was not included on that list of 11 locations that was circulated on Friday.
Though operations will continue in Marlborough until March 31, the schedule is being updated as testing winds down.
The site will be open on Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. through March 13.
It will then drop Tuesday hours beginning on March 14, running from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday through the end of the month.
The Stop the Spread program came to Marlborough in the earlier days of the pandemic. Providing free testing, it initially operated on the Marlborough Hospital campus.
The program expanded to the New England Sports Center as demand for testing increased.
Testing moved back to the hospital when case rates dipped before returning, once again, to the New England Sports Center late last year.
The surge in COVID-19 cases coinciding with the spread of the omicron variant of the virus at times drew massive traffic to the site.
Testing volumes have since declined, though, as COVID-19 case rates have plummeted.
Those declining case rates, Baker said, have coupled with the increased availability of at-home tests to justify scaling down the Stop the Spread program.
COVID-19 testing is still also available through a number of private locations.
