Sioux Center, Iowa — Governor Kim Reynolds said on Friday that some “Test Iowa” COVID-19 screening sites will be reallocated to different cities, including Sioux Center, in the coming days.
The Test Iowa site in Sioux City closes this evening (Friday, May 22nd). Woodbury County has been a national coronavirus hot spot, but Reynolds says by now one out of 11 residents of the county had been tested.
(As above) “A majority of their tests are already being done by a local health care provider, so they are still going to have access to testing. This just gives us an opportunity to take that Test Iowa site and actually move it up to Sioux Center, which is still relatively close and in the area, so they’ll have access to significant testing,” Reynolds says. “We just, as we look at the numbers and we look at the numbers tested and we start to see a decline, then that gives us an opportunity to reallocate and relocate some of our Test Iowa sites.”
Test Iowa is a statewide initiative to expand COVID-19 testing. Testing criteria now allows any Iowan to be tested, regardless of symptoms or potential exposure to the virus. To be tested, Iowans must first complete an assessment at www.testiowa.com and schedule an appointment at a test site.
Test Iowa’s mobile testing model makes it possible to quickly operationalize a temporary test site in a community where virus activity is increasing or access to testing is limited. Testing is rapidly scaled up to identify positive cases, conduct contact tracing, and determine scope of the virus in the community. Over time when test volume decreases, sites are moved to other communities where there is a need.
In addition to Sioux Center, new Test Iowa sites will be set up next week in Marshalltown, Council Bluffs and Burlington.
For the schedule of Test Iowa locations and times, visit coronavirus.iowa.gov.
