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March 29, 2024 6:34 am
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Mesquite distributes COVID tests

By BOBBIE GREEN & VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

Mesquite CERT volunteers distribute rapid test kits for COVID-19 to Virgin Valley residents driving through the City Hall parking lot to receive them.

The block surrounding Mesquite City Hall was a busy place as the City began handing out COVID-19 test kits to Virgin Valley residents last week.

The drive-thru distribution began on Wednesday afternoon in the south parking lot of City Hall. The prospect of free test kits quickly drew a crowd. Volunteers from the Mesquite Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) were kept busy throughout the afternoon from 3-7 pm.

“We were super busy,” Mesquite Fire and Rescue Chief Jayson Andrus said of that first day’s distribution. “We just got killed during the first hour. Than it calmed down a bit and just stayed steady the rest of the time.”

Andrus said that before that first event Mesquite had procured 3,000 tests. These were BinaxNOW antigen self-test kits. The supplies had been received from the Southern Nevada Health District.

It was hoped that those 3,000 tests would last at least the first week. But the demand for the testing supplies was high. By the end of the day on Wednesday, the volunteers had gone through no less than 2,820 units, with two tests per unit.

With similar events scheduled on Friday and Monday of this week, Andrus acted quickly to procure another 3,000 tests from SNHD for those events.

An additional block of 3,000 tests were also distributed to large employers in the city for use in testing their employees, Andrus said.

To stretch supplies, limits were placed on subsequent drive thru distribution events. On Friday, the volunteers were asking for proof of residency in Mesquite, Bunkerville, Beaver Dam, Littlefield and Scenic. They were also limiting distribution to only the number of people in each vehicle.

On Friday, the CERT volunteers served 683 cars with a total of 1,696 individual tests.

“We were really surprised at the number of people who showed up,” said CERT leader Sandy Cooper of Friday’s event. “I thought it went well, controlling the traffic was challenging. The local police volunteers that would normally help with traffic control were needed at the Car show today.”

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2 thoughts on “Mesquite distributes COVID tests”

  1. We got our kit for the covid-19 test kit n wasn’t bad to pick it up either n went smoothly with patience drivers n one accident that Lotscof us saw with the Mesqpolice cars n two vehicle was witness by us .

  2. I guess only large businesses (over 20 employees) get COVID. Why wasn’t these test kits made available to all businesses? It was not even announced that test kits would be available to businesses until they supply was gone. Also, the City has know way of knowing how many employees a company has!

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