Fremont Unified hands out 25,000 COVID tests one day after traffic snafu

FREMONT - The Fremont Unified School District scrambled to hand out thousands of COVID-19 tests Thursday, one day after a trouble-plagued roll-out of its free at-home testing program.

Families of students and faculty at schools in the district showed up at three locations to pick up the tests throughout the day.

"We think it’s really important for the public to get a test and get tested, so they can get back to day-to-day life," said Undav Sharma as he picked up his test Thursday with his mother.

One day earlier, Sharma was with scores of others who waited in line for the test but was turned away amid a chaotic process of receiving the tests.

The district had 34,000 tests ready to give out beginning of the day Wednesday but only opened one site to hand them out. It caused massive traffic backups around the city and prompted Fremont police to warn drivers to avoid the area.

Everyone still in line after 2 p.m. was turned away.

District Superintendent CJ Cammack apologized for the poor planning and opened more sites Thursday.

"We do recognize that there was a longer wait than we would have liked, and we appreciate the patience and flexibility of our community in that regard," he told KTVU.

Fremont Unified passed out tests at American High School, Irvington High School and Fremont Adult and Continuing Education. By the end of the day, they had handed out 25,000 kits, a district spokeswoman said. 

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Each kit comes with two tests. Students were asked to take one test on Friday and the second on Sunday before returning to school on Monday. 

"With the Surge of omicron, we think that testing them before sending them to school will definitely help control this pandemic," said another father named Gunda.

 Evan Sernoffsky is an investigative reporter for KTVU. Email Evan at evan.sernoffsky@foxtv.com and follow him on Twitter @EvanSernoffsky