ODESSA, Texas — Odessa City Council members say that the more people that get tested, the better. Now, they're offering a way for more people to do just that.
Using COVID-19 government resources, the city of Odessa is helping to set up mobile testing units for the virus.
People will now be able to get tested for free at this mobile testing unit. According to Diana Ruiz, one of the women in charge of setting this testing unit up, having access to free testing was important.
"There’s a lot of places locally that test, but the cost is relatively high if you don’t have insurance and a lot of our individuals living in our community don’t have insurance. So we thought it was not only a public health effort, but it is just an important part of our community to say we'll bring the testing to you," Ruiz said.
The total cost of the this project comes out to just under $720,000, but it will be funded by the CARES Act. This will allow the mobile testing unit to test everyone, including individuals that aren't showing symptoms.
Those who show up to get tested will not be screened, and they won't have to make an appointment.
There will be two rounds of testing. One starts on June 30 and runs through July 30, while the second round of testing will take place in the fall. However, only 200 people will be tested at each location each day it's offered there.
"We wanted to absolutely do some crowd control and make sure that we have social distancing in place, and so we really put in a lot of measures for our team to be safe and for all the attendees to be safe, but we did feel like 200 is a relatively solid number to be able to test within the time frame. Each event will last two hours," Ruiz said.
Even though only 200 people will be able to be tested at each location, Ruiz hopes people take advantage of the opportunity and go to get tested. The first location for testing will be Sherwood Park.