Doctors Without Borders to NPR: We need “more access to tests that we can use so the persons who are positive, their contacts could get tested, so we can quell this outbreak.”
After weeks of anxiety, it appears that the novel coronavirus has established a foothold in Immokalee.
Just last month, before state and local authorities agreed to implement three days of mass COVID-19 testing in Immokalee, the number of positive tests reported in the farmworker town hovered for several weeks in the 20-30s, creating the impression of a vulnerable community miraculously spared by the deadly virus. Then, last week, following the three days of testing — and more than a week of delay before the lab finally released the results — the number jumped to nearly 100.
And now today, just two weeks after completion of the mass testing, the number of cases has risen to 249, with stories of severe cases beginning to circulate in the tight-knit farmworker community and new cases increasing by larger and larger numbers every day. As a result, Immokalee has shot up the list of cities with the most cases in the state of Florida, landing among much larger cities like Gainesville, home of the University of Florida, and towns on the east coast of Florida, where large numbers first appeared in the early days of the outbreak:
