On Saturday, Santa Barbara County health officials distributed COVID-19 tests to the Santa Maria community.
The distribution event took place at the Santa Maria Health Care Center.
The staff came at 8:00 to set up and we were ready to go by 9:00. The line of cars was on Betteravia Rd., so we opened at 9:00 a.m. and served people quickly. It’s amazing, it’s awesome. People are happy to be able to take some tests with us and they have really received a lot of gratitude. It’s a fun event to be able to do this for our community,” said Santa Barbara County Public Health Director Dr. Van Do-Reynoso.
According to county health officials, Santa Barbara County has 165,000 COVID-19 test kits. The county expects to receive an additional 165,000 test kits every two weeks.
Test kits will be distributed to local partners where county residents can pick up tests in the future.
Dr. Do-Reynoso recommends people get tested for COVID-19 if they are at higher risk of being infected. These high-risk situations include people living in congregate settings, people who travel often, or those around sick people.
“Over the past few weeks, we’ve had an incredible, unanticipated increase in that amount, but it’s good that we’re seeing some slowdown and seeing the cases go down a bit,” Dr. Do-Reynoso said.
Dr. Do-Reynoso says the state is supporting county schools with COVID-19 testing, but the county school team is meeting with local schools to provide COVID-19 guidance.
