Aspen Journalism Lani Kitching waits for a patient to arrive for a COVID-19 test at the testing kiosk in the cellphone parking lot near Aspen/Pitkin County Airport. (Dan Bayer/Aspen Journalism) Pitkin County has maintained a high COVID-19 community-testing capacity since Curative tests were discontinued last month, but the number of people trying to find out if they have the virus has come down from an early-January peak. In a few weeks at the beginning of winter, the county went from having a low testing rate to boasting one of the highest in the state, thanks in part to the widespread use of free tests available without a doctor’s order, deployed through a partnership involving the state of Colorado, local officials and the San Dimas, Calif.-based company that made and processed the PCR tests.