WATSONVILLE—The County of Santa Cruz had a soft opening for a new Covid-19 testing site at Ramsay Park Thursday.
The site will initially focus on frontline health care workers, first responders and employees working in essential services and roles, said county spokesman Jason Hoppin.
A partnership between the State, the Covid-19 Testing Task Force and OptumServe, the site will have an eventual capacity of 132 specimens per day that will be sent to commercial labs for processing. The site is being coordinated by SAVE Lives Santa Cruz County.
A doctor’s referral is required for testing, though testing will eventually expand to all community members. No walk-up or drive-through testing will occur at the site.
“This is exciting news and one of many steps we are taking to rapidly scale up our capacity to monitor Covid-19 within Santa Cruz County, particularly among highly vulnerable members of our community,” said Margaret Lapiz, a former executive vice president with The Permanente Group and the head of the SAVE Lives initiative.
The OptumServe site will also include a focus on persons identified by contact tracing and those in congregate living situations, including residents and staff of skilled nursing facilities.
The OptumServe site will also support expanded testing to vulnerable populations such as farmworkers and people experiencing homelessness. Materials will be available to Spanish speakers and all individuals regardless of immigration or health insurance status.
The site is one of 80 established throughout California to be operated by OptumServe.
