Photo By Staff Sgt. Tegan Kucera | The Allegan County health department once again held a free COVID-19 testing event on...... read more read more
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ALLEGAN, Mich. – The Michigan National Guard was in Allegan County, Aug. 8, 2020, once again providing free COVID-19 tests to anyone in the public who wanted one. They were also training civilian testing contractors on safe testing protocol.
These contractors will also be joining the fight against COVID at testing sites around the state.
“We’re demonstrating the process for the civilian contractors, showing them how to conduct the testing sites, do the nasal swabs and transfer the testing kits,” said Staff Sgt. Jack King.
A team leader with the Michigan National Guard’s 182nd Task Force, King has been part of the COVID-19 testing mission since its beginning over three months ago. He has seen the progress the Guard has made testing Michiganders across the state. In addition to dozens of community-based testing sites, Guard members have administered more than 110,000 tests at more than 230 long-term care facilities, 85 Michigan Department of Corrections facilities, and dozens of community-based testing sites across the state. King knows how much the medics practiced at first to make sure they were as proficient as possible before they started testing the public.
Being part of the COVID-19 testing mission from its infancy, King has seen many of the dozens of testing sites the Michigan National Guard has facilitated, and through these he has gained a better understanding of his home state. He has now seen more of it in the last three months than in his entire life previously.
“I think it’s a wonderful experience, they’ve been doing it for so long and they’ve been very helpful letting us practice with them,” said Deborah Kearby a registered nurse with Interim Healthcare. “They’re pretty efficient and I think that will help us to be just as efficient.”
Originally the group was going to be training in Lansing in a classroom environment; instead they were in Allegan County seeing first-hand how the Michigan Guard handles COVID-19 testing within the state.
“It was a pleasant surprise to come here today and see that we were going to be trained by the National Guard,” said Kearby.
One thing is certain: whether it’s through the National Guard or civilian contractors, the State of Michigan is working to make sure Michiganders make it through the pandemic as safely as they can.
| Date Taken: | 08.17.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 08.18.2020 12:37 |
| Story ID: | 376244 |
| Location: | ALLEGAN, MICHIGAN, US |
| Web Views: | 40 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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