Arrowsmith, LeRoy, Bellflower, Heyworth, and even Ellsworth might see convenient COVID-19 testing soon after the McLean County Board of Health's approval of a program to offer rural testing of the virus.
Health Department Administrator Jessica McKnight said this won't necessarily be a good gauge of how much coronavirus is present in the rural areas around Bloomington-Normal, but it will help overall data reliability.
"If the positivity rate is at or below 10%, that also tells you, you are testing enough. We just want to make testing available as much as we can in the communities," she said.
McKnight said she hopes the program can start by the end of the month, pending state grant approval that also will pay for increased contact tracing. The health department partner in the effort would be Bloomington-based Chestnut Health Systems.
"They have a mobile health unit. We're going to be taking that mobile unit out to those rural areas and setting up drive-thru and walk-up testing," said McKnight.
She said the private Reditus lab that does other testing in the county will process the rural tests.
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