Victoria COVID-19 Specimen Collection Starts Today

Today marks the first day that potential COVID-19 specimen collection begins at the Community Center parking lot for those who have been "pre-approved" to provide samples.

Dr. John McNeill offered that the sampling station is not for the general public at this time. The strict guidelines follow recommendations provided by CDC and anyone who is giving samples at this time will have been "pre-approved" by a physician or the Victoria Health Department prior to their scheduled arrival to the sample site.

City officials meet daily at 3pm at the Emergency Operations Management Center to offer the public live updated COVID-19 information, often bringing in various " experts" in fields such as public health, public education and recently, unemployment insurance advisers. The city has committed to continue to bring in various speakers to discuss topics deemed most important to the community.

Yesterdays biggest topics were the opening of the COVID-19 sampling site, VISD's first day of offering breakfast and lunch to children in the Crossroads and a message from Judge Ben Zeller and Mayor Rawley McCoy to encourage our community to adhere to the guidelines offered daily through the live meetings and to follow the Center for Disease Control diligently, reiterating that the health and safety of our community is their number one priority.

Dr. McNeill offered additionally that " hands down" he recommends the CDC website as his "go- to" website for the most reliable and updated COVID-19 information including the national count of confirmed cases in America.

City officials were not able to say how long it would take for the pre-approved samples to return from testing or specifically where the samples were headed for testing, although Dr.McNeill offered again that "as soon as the test results were returned," city officials would inform the Victoria community.

Be sure to watch our live coverage of the Victoria Emergency Operations Management meetings weekdays at 3pm.

Here is a link to a COVID-19 testing site at a NY fire station from The FW. This is just an example of what testing sites throughout the country might resemble.