Collier County Health Department announces new plans for ongoing, free, community-wide COVID-19 testing in Immokalee starting this weekend!
In response to dangerous spike of COVID-19 cases in Immokalee, Collier County Department of Health announces plans to partner with Doctors Without Borders and local clinic to provide urgently-needed testing!…
Dr. Seth Holmes on NBC2: “Florida is one of the main agricultural producers for the whole country, so if we can protect our farmworkers, we’re also protecting our food system.“
At the beginning of May, nearly two months into the coronavirus pandemic, there were only 44 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Immokalee. Today, less than a month later, there are more than ten times that number — nearly 500 confirmed cases — surpassing the reported numbers in some of the state’s largest coastal cities.
Throughout this past week, headlines broke across the region warning, “Immokalee quickly becoming the epicenter of COVID-19 cases in Southwest Florida.” The extensive local news coverage has helped turn a spotlight on the severe shortage of testing resources in Florida’s largest farmworker community. That shortage thwarted the ability of the Department of Health and Doctors Without Borders, who set up shop in Immokalee in early May to support with vital aid efforts, to assess the real extent of the spread throughout the community, prompting Doctors Without Borders to launch an urgent public call for more testing to help “quell the outbreak.”
In an excellent report by NBC2 reporter Briana Fernandez titled “Immokalee residents suffer from lack of coronavirus testing, poor living conditions,” Dr. Seth Holmes, a public health professor at the University of California Berkeley and an expert in community health, shares his experiences on the ground as a health volunteer in Immokalee over the past month and makes critical recommendations for protecting the farmworker community’s health and well-being:
And yesterday, at long last, calls for urgent action in Immokalee were answered!
On a weekly call to discuss coronavirus updates with Collier County officials and Immokalee community organizations, Stephanie Vick of the Collier County Health Department announced plans to partner with the Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida and Doctors Without Borders to provide ongoing testing for Immokalee residents, in conjunction with the Department of Emergency Management. The testing is set to take place 3 times per week at various locations throughout town for symptomatic and asymptomatic patients alike. Perhaps most importantly, the DOH announced that testing sites will be open during evening hours to provide access to farmworkers and their families, as workers often don’t return from the fields before 7:00 or 8:00 at night.
As hundreds of Immokalee residents grapple with illness and fear, the advent of free, community-wide testing is an important step in the right direction to mount an effective response to the public health crisis unfolding before us. Just this week, CIW has received a flood of reports from community members who have been directly affected by COVID-19 and are now struggling to access tests or follow-up services to adequately care for themselves and their families, as well as the heartbreaking news of several deaths due to the virus. We can only hope that in the coming weeks, as the results from this second wave of mass testing begin to roll in, county officials complement the additional tests with effective contact tracing to identify and notify those who might have been exposed, as well as crucial wrap-around services to ensure that affected individuals and families can self-isolate and still meet their basic needs while in recovery.
Check back in next week for more details on the Department of Health’s plans for community-wide testing!