Guilford County health officials are offering free at-home COVID-19 testing kits at 10 sites across the county.
The new approach marks a shift away from the big public testing sites and clinics that the county had used in the past. Instead, the free COVID testing kits will be distributed through community sites.
Kenya Godette is the communications manager for Guilford County Public Health. She says the new program will make testing more accessible.
“We do have some of our marginalized populations that we have worked with in the past, and we wanted to make sure that test kits are available to them,” she says. “People who may use public transportation as opposed to private transportation, we wanted to make sure the locations were accessible as well.”
Godette says the county is working with local organizations that have an existing relationship within their communities and are considered safe spaces.
Guilford is currently in the moderate category for the community level of COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Godette says that's partly due to a recent spike in hospitalizations.
She encourages people to continue masking when they can and use social distancing to protect themselves and help drive the number of cases in the county down.