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ELKINS -- Randolph County officials have announced a second round of free community testing for COVID-19 planned for this weekend.
At Davis Medical Center from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, the Randolph Elkins Health Department will distribute COVID-19 testing to any member of the community, regardless of symptoms, for no charge. This will continue until there are no more tests. On Saturday testing will take place from 8 a.m. to noon at Valley Health Care in Mill Creek.
"The hospital is accommodating us to have a separate line that we will man with volunteers while they take care of their own hospital patients and pre-ops and such in another designated line," said Bonnie Woodrum, infectious disease nurse with the Health Department. "I do have volunteers lined up for our spot and we will have signage so people can tell where they're supposed to go."
Woodrum said that there will be "at least" 400 available tests at each site and they will be distributed on a first come, first served basis.
This testing follows a surge in positive COVID-19 cases statewde. Within Randolph County there were 12 active cases with 141 recovered as of Monday afternoon.
More than 35 Randolph County residents are currently quarantined, many because they had come in contact with a positive case from a surrounding outbreak, Woodrum said during a conference call among Randolph County leaders about COVID-19 Monday afternoon.
"For essential services, they can quarantine for four days and be tested and then return to work with strict precautions," said Woodrum.
"These numbers are growing because we have people traveling."
"We also have positive cases and contact in Randolph County from an outbreak that is attributed to Upshur County that has something to do with the stockyards," she said. "I want to caution people that it's out there and you need to take precautions."
Woodrum stressed that the Health Department is working to track all possible contacts of positive cases as a result of these outbreaks in other counties.
"I'm concerned about the contacts with travelers and with people from other counties where we have outbreaks. We have an outbreak that's considered from Preston County for people who traveled from Myrtle Beach and we have an outbreak that is attributed to Upshur County that is associated with a stockyard sale and some of those contacts were having a cookout," she said.
"We have positives and contacts from both of these outbreaks so I would caution people to take precautions to protect themselves and to protect others."
The next Office of Emergency Management conference call for Randolph County leaders will take place at 1 p.m. on Monday, June 29.