SARASOTA-MANATEE COUNTIES (WSNN) – Three major COVID-19 testing sites on the Suncoast shutdown before noon today.
Reports show there are 5,500 new cases in Florida on Wednesday.
“It spreading like wildfire, my personal opinion is I think we need to go back to quarantine,” Sarasota County resident, Geoff Hojara, said.
Over the last week, testing demands in Sarasota and Manatee Counties have skyrocketed.
In Manatee County, the Lincoln Park site in Palmetto opens at 9 am and reached its 200 test limit after just an hour-and-a-half.
Robert L. Taylor Community Complex testing site in Sarasota opens at 8am and reached its limit of 300 people at 10:30.
Bradenton resident, Juan Nardo, went with his family last week. He returned Wednesday with good news.
“Now, I’m coming here with the result, and it’s negative,” Nardo said. “But I was worried about that because my son was in Daycare. Not that there is any problem there, but I was worried too.”
And, the University of Town Center mall opened at 9 am to shut down after only 3 hours, hitting its max of 750 people.
A UTC testing site staff member said lines have been filled since Friday.
Long lines also means gas problems. Father, Hojara, comes in to save the day after his daughter finds herself without gas.
“Got a phone call at noon, and she goes dad I ran out of gas, and I need help and I need gas, so here I am now,” Hojara said.
His daughter arrived at the testing site around 10:30. Hojara says these lines are a problem, and the Suncoast needs more testing kits.
“I mean we’re shutting down, it’s 12:30, almost one o’clock, and we’re supposed to run till five or so, yea absolutely, we need to expand it,” Hojara said.
Hojara says people have gotten lazy in protecting themselves and now is the time to buckle down and stay at home.
“We need to cover our face, we need to wash our hands, sanitize and restrict contact with people,” Hojara said. “It’s cool to hangout and stuff, but hangout online.”
All three sites will open again Thursday morning.
Also, the Trump Administration announced Wednesday afternoon, that they are canceling funding for testing sites.
