Starting Sunday, May 3rd, the Florida National Guard will activate a COVID-19 testing site in Immokalee.
Immokalee Division Director for Department of Health Collier, Mark Lemke, said people won’t need a medical referral to get tested.
“We will not turn anybody away who shows up to get a test, until we run out of tests,” Lemke said.
On Tuesday, Lemke said the local health department was given 1,000 tests by the state Division of Emergency Management for the site.
“They want to see our burn rate for the first 1,000 [tests] and they will overnight more, we are trying to get them to just send us the other thousand now,” Lemke said.
Lemke said people will be tested on a first come, first serve basis.
“As we see how long it takes to get someone through the process, we’ll let the [Collier] Sheriff’s Office know so they can end that line when we feel that will take us up until either the end of the day or to the point when we are out of tests,” Lemke said.
County health officials said clients will be asked to provide their name, address, phone number and social security number, if they have one.
Information on how to access results will be available at the testing site in Spanish and Creole. Lemke says the department also wants to make that information available in Mam, a Mayan language.
“It gives them the information about the lab and if they don’t hear anything in five days, that they can call that number and get their results,” Lemke said.
Walk up and drive-through Covid-19 testing will be available from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Sunday, May 3 through Tuesday, May 5 at the Collier DOH Immokalee branch location.
