The county health department has seen an increase in demand for COVID testing. To meet the demand, several churches in southeastern San Diego are stepping up to provide testing sites.
Beginning Sunday, Sept. 26, the following sites will provide no-appointment COVID-19 testing:
Bayview Baptist Church, 6134 Pastor Timothy J Winters St, San Diego, CA 92114
Sundays and Mondays, 9 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
Encanto Southern Baptist Church, 6020 Akins Ave, San Diego, CA 92114
Monday – Friday, 10:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
City of Hope International Church, 4999 Holly Dr, San Diego, CA 92113
Local
Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
On Sunday morning, the testing site at Bayview Baptist Church was busy with families who wanted to get tested.
“One of the girls on her cheer squad tested positive for COVID. In order for them to resume everyone needs to be tested and we have a 72-hour waiting period before anyone can go back,” said Shannarai Diaz, a San Diego resident.
Shannarai’s family is fully vaccinated, but she still thinks it’s important to have the testing availability.
“Yeah, its really convenient for us, we just live 3 miles from here and 211 gave us this information. I called 211. That was yesterday and they told me it would be open this morning,” said Diaz
The increased testing capacity will ensure that the community will continue to have access to testing.
At Encanto Southern Baptist Church they were already doing COVID testing once a week, now they’re expanding it to five days a week.
“Folks are already inquiring so we already know it’s going to be well attended, so this is a good thing for the community,” said Robert Pope, Pastor at Encanto Southern Baptist Church.
The shift in testing sites comes after the County of San Diego closed its testing site at the Tubman Chavez Community Center. The center has played a vital role in the response to COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic. Since June 29, 2020, it has provided 182,082 COVID tests and 5,705 vaccinations.
