January 11, 2021 – Project Better Together hosted a local testing site on Friday, January 8 as part of Corteva Agriscience’s Demo Day of Free COVID testing. This was funded as part of a grant with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Asymptomatic area residents were able to visit the Coralville Conference Center for a free self-administered PCR test.
321 tests were submitted with only 6 individuals receiving a notification of virus detection and 8 inconclusive tests. Those who received one of these notifications were instructed to follow up with their healthcare provider and encouraged to take an additional test to confirm results. All individuals were encouraged to continue safe health practices of face coverings, distancing and avoiding social gatherings.
“Going into this day of testing, we knew that the biggest benefit would be that if we could identify asymptomatic carriers and get them to isolate, we can help slow the spread of COVID-19 locally,” said Mark Nolte, Project Better Together coordinator. “Even though we only identified 6 people, just think of the possibly hundreds of people those 6 residents can come into contact and infect without ever knowing.”
Project Better Together would like to thank the City of Coralville, Coralville Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, Johnson County Public Health and all of the volunteers who made the event safe and efficient for participants.