Ramsey County offers free COVID-19 testing to its residents. | Pixabay
Ramsey County offers free COVID-19 testing to its residents. | Pixabay
Ramsey County began free COVID-19 testing on Aug. 8 for anyone who wants to be tested.
CBS Minnesota reports that residents don't have to have symptoms to be tested.
Greg Rhodes and his wife, Pang Foua, joined about 600 people who were tested at Aldrich Arena in Maplewood.
About 200 of the patients were walk-ins who weren't required to show IDs or insurance information. The other 400 called in for appointments.
“As pastors, we also meet up with people,” Foua told CBS Minnesota. “People are becoming more open to meeting up for counseling and prayer, so we want to make sure we’re healthy.”
Dr. Kelley Jewett of M Health Fairview said that the uptick in population means that free testing is a step in the right direction. The county aims to get everyone tested.
“We’ve seen numbers in Ramsey County go up for our various Asian populations as well as the Latinx population, so we are trending in the right direction but the numbers still are not good,” Jewett told CBS Minnesota.
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