2-day COVID-19 testing site to open in East Palo Alto
Kayla Ferrari, a physician assistant with AltaMed Health Services, prepares to test a drive-through patient for COVID-19 at the Bristol Street clinic on April 21, 2020 in Santa Ana, California. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Re
PALO ALTO, Calif. - A coronavirus testing site will open for two days next week in
East Palo Alto, city officials said Thursday.
The site will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday at
the Lewis and Joan Platt East Palo Alto Family YMCA at 550 Bell St. in East Palo Alto.
Testing is free and available to everyone regardless of immigration status. Also, tests are available to everyone regardless of their medical condition. Appointments are required and can be made at Project Baseline's website at https://bit.ly/2xk73OL.
Residents can drive or walk up to the testing site, but they must
go up to the site alone, city officials said. Multilingual staff members will be on hand.
Mayor Regina Wallace-Jones said she decided to advocate for a site in East Palo Alto for a number of reasons.
She said that communities mostly of color are disproportionately
involved in service and essential worker occupations. Therefore they are disproportionately at risk of being exposed to the coronavirus.
She said East Palo Alto has a substantial undocumented community and 12 percent of residents are uninsured.
Also, for some residents, getting to a testing site 14 miles away
in another part of San Mateo County may be challenging and language barriers might exist, Wallace-Jones said.
East Palo Alto has the resources to offer testing and "because at
the end of the day every life is worth saving," she said.