Maine will open a new drive-through COVID-19 testing site at the Augusta Armory next week as the rate of positive tests for the virus reaches a new all-time high, officials said Wednesday. 

At his first weekly press briefing of 2022, state Center for Disease Control director Dr. Nirav Shah said 18% of professional COVID-19 tests in Maine in the last week have been positive. Surrounding New England states are seeing a similar uptick in their COVID-19 positivity rates. 

“It's a high mark for the pandemic, driven largely by more positive results, not a contraction in the amount of testing,” Shah said. 

The milestone comes as the highly contagious omicron variant spreads and many struggle to access testing in or outside their homes. The state hopes to help by offering its new testing site at the Augusta Armory, which will operate by appointment only beginning next Monday and will generally run on days when the state is not offering vaccines at the same location. 

But Shah also urged people to do their best to obtain at-home test kits in case of potential exposure or a flare-up of symptoms. He said he personally would use the swab for these kits in the back of the throat, not in the nose, but he acknowledged the science on this is still evolving. 

He said people who test positive with an at-home kit, especially if they have symptoms, should not feel a need to get the result confirmed by a doctor. Instead, he said, “you should take that result to the bank and start making sure you're isolating, staying home, wearing a mask, preventing others from being infected.” 

Shah said Maine can expect to see an even greater spike in cases in the coming days and weeks as omicron cases boom. They currently account for less than 9% of reported cases in Maine, but Shah said this is likely a vast undercount due to a lag in data analysis. 

He said the state does not expect to begin reporting omicron or delta cases on a zip code or county level as it has with broader COVID-19 metrics, and urged residents to treat omicron and its high levels of transmission as a dominant threat that is now — or soon will be — “everywhere.” 

“It is my strong belief that if you are basing your day-to-day decisions by data that are on a zip code map, you are doing it wrong,” he said. “The zip code data, as well as all testing data … are a retrospective look at transmission events that occurred one, two, three weeks ago. They do not tell you anything about your prospective risk.” 

He said state and federal health officials hope to have better data on the spread of omicron and more information about its severity in the coming weeks. For now, he urged residents to continue to take strong precautions, including wearing sturdy masks, getting booster shots and limiting their risk of exposure with other people.