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Get tested, save lives
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Posted on May 01 2020
With community testing for COVID-19 now in full swing, Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is encouraging everyone on island to get tested.
The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. started rolling out the drive-thru testing at the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport three days ago; to date, 394 individuals have already been tested.
“When you get tested, you are saving your life, and the life that you might infect, in case you have it. We hope you don’t have it, but we need to get our community base tested,” Torres said.
The governor highlighted the fact that other parts of the world do not even have test kits, that people cannot get tested even if people want to, and added that the COVID-19 Task Force has been working hard for the past two months to secure test kits, and to get the community testing going.
“Do we expect everybody to be negative? We wish. But this is the only way for us to know exactly where we are at,” he said.
There are over a million confirmed cases in the U.S., with 147,411 recoveries, and 61,669 deaths. In comparison, the CNMI had 14 cases, with 12 recoveries and two deaths. There are no positive cases at the moment.
“I know that a lot of folks are scared, but if you want to move forward in our life, we need to do this testing so that we know what to do with each other. It’s better that we know now, and that will prevent anyone from infecting or transmitting COVID to anybody else,” he said.
The governor also said that they worked on having Cabinet members get tested yesterday.
“We will be having our government employees take the test as well. That’s one of the requirements that I would like to see before they get back to work, especially those that work with our community on a one-to-one basis,” he added.
As for results, the community is being asked for a little bit of patience. Specimens, once taken at the testing site, have to be brought to the lab for the actual lab test. Those who already got tested will be contacted for the results.
To get scheduled for COVID-19 testing, sign-up at https://www.chcc.gov.mp/covid19testing.php, or call (670) 285-1352, (670) 285-1542, (670) 285-1672, or (670) 285-1854.
