NOGALES, Ariz. — Santa Cruz County kicked off their first round of blitz testing Saturday.
More than 500 people waited less than a half-hour at the site for their opportunity to be tested by the National Guard.
“We know that we are part of the solution in a holistic approach with the community, that’s why this is so meaningful for us,” said Lt. Patel.
For the county, blitz testing was a long time coming.
“Sometimes little Santa Cruz County gets lost at the state level. We had people that pushed and shoved and we finally got to organize all this," explained Supervisor Rudy Molera, District 2.
Molera and Bracker expressed how grateful they are to the State and local leaders.
Santa Cruz county applied for its first grant on June 2 and worked with the state to ramp up testing.
That data will be important for the border county to assess.
"Once we go through a couple of days of this and then next weekend when we do Rio Rico and Patagonia. We’ll have a better understanding of what’s going on in Santa Cruz County,” said Chairman Bruce Bracker.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Santa Cruz County has seen 2,464 cases, with 1,589 recoveries.
The county recently has seen a small drop in cases, according to the health services director.
“We’ve actually had some testing going down as well. So we’re kind of concerned about that. We are hoping to get a good turn out and that will drop our positivity rate down,” explained County Health Services Director Jeff Terrell.
Blitz testing will continue Sunday in Nogales at the Santa Cruz County Plaza.
