Dawson County, National Guard opened drive-thru COVID-19 test site Sunday

 

DAWSON COUNTY, Ga. – Georgia has lagged behind many states in the number of COVID-19 tests administered but, with the help of the National Guard, Dawson County is doing its part to change that.

With the state ranked 39^th per capita in COVID-19 testing, Dawson County opened a drive-thru testing facility Sunday morning at Rock Creek Park.

Dawson County Fire and Emergency Services Director Danny Thompson said, “We’ve heard the voices of the community. We have been working with our public health, with the National Guard for several weeks now to make this happen.”

The state is partnering with counties for developing the test kits and laboratory testing. Results of the tests should be ready in three to four days.

County Commission Chairman Billy Thurmond was among the first to be tested Sunday. “We’re proud to have the National Guard here and proud to be able to offer testing to our citizens,” he said. “We’re going to work hard to try and protect or citizens the best we can and try to get everybody through this pandemic. We will come out on the other side. Our citizens have done a real good job of following the guidelines. I’m very proud of the citizens of Dawson County. They have really stepped up and followed the guidelines from the beginning.”

The test is completely voluntary and is the nasopharyngeal swab to test for presence of Wuhan SARS COV-2 (Corona) virus and the test is available at no cost to patients. Test results will be available in 3-4 days.

Up-to-date information on the date and hours of the next testing can be obtained by visiting the Dawson County Government or Dawson County Fire and Emergency Services Facebook pages.

 

Fetch Your News is a hyper local news outlet that covers Dawson, Lumpkin, White, Fannin, Gilmer, Pickens, Union, Towns and Murray counties as well as Cherokee County in N.C. FYN attracts 300,000+ page views per month, 3.5 million impressions per month and approximately 15,000 viewers per week on FYNTV.com and up to 60,000 Facebook page reach. If you would like to follow up-to-date local events in any of those counties, please visit us at FetchYourNews.com