By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — There is an event coming up this weekend to test people from Reno County who don't believe they've ever had COVID-19.
"We're trying to target people that aren't having symptoms, that have not been a direct contact, haven't traveled out of state," said Reno County Interim Health Officer Karen Hammersmith. "The reason we're doing that is we want to see, you know, what we have going that is asymptomatic. If you're sick, we do want you to go to your provider so that you can be cared for."
This is the second straight weekend of testing. In week one, employees and their families from USD 308 and USD 313 were the focus again for asymptomatic cases.
"Those are the ones that go undetected," Hammersmith said. "Those are the ones that could spread more in our community that we're not catching," Hammersmith said. "If we can catch some of those in a community testing drive, then we can go ahead and narrow that down quickly and hopefully not have cases spread."
The focus this week is the Haven and Nickerson school districts, but all are welcome, as long as you don't have symptoms.
"It will be Saturday, September 12 from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.," Hammersmith said. "We need 250 swabs. It's at the Hutchinson Clinic. They do it at the northwest corner of the Hutch Clinic parking lot. That's just under the 2107 area."
The Reno County Commission has approved spending the money for 250 tests a week for the month of September in an effort to keep the county's schools open.