State, National Guard to test for coronavirus at Palmetto park. You won’t need a car
Manatee County residents will soon be able to walk-up to a new testing site in Palmetto and be tested for the coronavirus.
On Tuesday, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, with the help of the Florida National Guard, was setting up the county’s first walk-up test site at Lincoln Park, 501 17th St. E., Palmetto.
The site had a soft opening on Wednesday, and will be fully operational beginning Thursday, according to Manatee County Public Safety Director Jacob Saur.
The site will operate from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., doing up to 200 swab tests a day at the county park.
“We are preparing the site to run for 14 days to test adults,” said Robert Bennett, the incident commander at the site and a retired battalion chief with the Sarasota Fire Department. “You pull in and park, walk right up with just your identification and a way for the state to get a hold of you for your test results.”
Appointments and prescriptions will not be needed.
According to the Florida Department of Health, there have been 16,440 people tested in Manatee County as of the latest official data released Tuesday.
Nurses and members of the National Guard seen setting up on Tuesday, were not wearing masks or practicing social distancing.
This is the first walk-up testing site the state has opened in Manatee County. With the support of the National Guard, the state has been operating 25 community based drive-thru or walk-up testing sites elsewhere in the state.
Some local residents have reported delays and difficulties in getting their results from the state-run drive-thru testing site near the Mall at the University Town Center in Sarasota.
This story was originally published May 26, 2020 at 3:41 PM.
