Santa Barbara County health officials distributed COVID-19 tests to the Santa Maria community on Saturday.
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 give by 9:00. The line of cars were out into Betteravia Rd., so we opened up actually at 9:00 and quickly served people. It's amazing, it's great. People are happy they can pick up some tests from us and just really gotten a lot of gratitude. It's a fun event to be able to do this for our community,” said Dr. Van Do-Reynoso, the Santa Barbara County Public Health Director.
According to county health officials, Santa Barbara County has 165,000 COVID-19 test kits on hand. The county expects to receive 165,000 additional test kits every two weeks.
Test kits will be distributed to local partners where county residents can pick up the tests in the future.
Dr. Do-Reynoso recommends people get tested for COVID-19 if they are at a higher risk of being infected. These high-risk situations include those living in a congregated setting, people who travel often, or those who are around sick individuals.
“We, in the past few weeks, experienced an incredible surge, unanticipated that amount, but it's good that we're seeing somewhat of a slowdown and we're seeing the cases dropping a little bit,” said Dr. Do-Reynoso.
Dr. Do-Reynoso says that the state is supporting county schools with COVID-19 tests, but that the county’s school team is meeting with local schools to give them any COVID-19 guidance.