ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida — In St. Augustine, there is a need for COVID-19 testing. The demand is so great that city leaders say it is impacting the local workforce and preventing local businesses from having enough staff to function.
The city commission and Flagler Hospital have joined together to create a new testing site in downtown St. Augustine.
It will be along the northside of the city parking garage, where the trolleys pick up and drop of passengers.
While there are drug stores and walk-in clinics that can test for COVID-19, city leaders say testing appointments are booked for days.
"The workforce can’t wait five days for employees to get back to work," City of St. Augustine Communications Director Melissa Wissel said. "So this is really answering that need of getting our workforce back."
Meanwhile, Flagler Hospital continues to break its own record number of Covid-19 patients.
"As of this morning we have 122 patients hospitalized with COVID-19," Gina Mangus with Flagler Hospital said Tuesday. "The important part about access to testing is people are finding out right away if they have COVID-19 or not. So if they find out that they don't, it's allowing them to get back to work or into the classroom. If they find out that they do, they can immediately isolate and keep others from catching COVID-19."
Meanwhile, the trolleys will reroute their trips in order to help get this testing site underway.
The St. Augustine testing site will officially open Monday. More details will be released this week.