To help contain and stop the spread of the virus, the Community Wellness America program across the country has been on a campaign to provide voluntary free-testing, painless, self-administered COVID-19 PCR tests to everyone that wishes to receive one.
While vaccines have helped lower the number of COVID cases, Community Wellness America Corporate Campaign Coordinator Gloria Apolinario has stressed the importance for everyone, including those who are vaccinated, to still get tested, warning about future variants.
“The message is that we have to work together,” Apolinario said. “People should be tested all the time. There are a lot of holdouts. The people who are mostly dying are those not vaccinated, based on what I’ve been reading.”
Community Wellness America is a non-profit 501(c)3 supported and funded by the federal government, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and pharmaceutical companies. It is a nonpolitical, nonpartisan organization.
“Community Wellness America is a grassroots organization,” Community Wellness America Volunteer Campaign Coordinator for the Region Ryan Barghlameno said. “It’s been offering a variety of benefits, especially to low-income communities around the country. We have multiple offices from the west coast to the east coast. Our volunteers are from the community that they are serving.”
Barghlameno says the organization’s biggest emphasis is on making sure the people in each community who care for their community and wants to do good can get a chance, based on the programs from the federal government that are available.
“So, this is one of those programs that we offer for the moment which is the free COVID testing,” Barghlameno said. “These are kits that are provided to the public. Whoever wishes to receive one, qualifies for one under the HRSA Program. We’re happy to send them to our network of laboratories to get the results.”
Apolinario, who was recently appointed the corporate campaign coordinator for the organization, covers the West Texas region including Amarillo and Lubbock and says that this is a nationwide effort.
“The mission is to prevent future lockdowns but also monitor the community for mutated strains of the virus, which is more dangerous and contagious,” Apolinario said. “We’re giving voluntary free testing painless, self-administered COVID-19 tests for everyone who wishes to receive one.”
Those who are interested in the tests can call Apolinario at 432-349-0522 or Volunteer Campaign Coordinator Brandt Tomaska at 817-247-6115 to get it set up.
Apolinario says that Community Wellness America goes to shelters, churches, senior centers, homeless areas, schools, supermarkets, assisted living facilities, bus depots, festivals, fairs and events to offer the tests.
“Citizenship is not required and undocumented immigrants are welcomed to take the tests,” Apolinario said. “Every individual over the age of five is eligible, once every two weeks. Vaccination status does not affect eligibility tests. We accommodate everybody’s businesses, small, medium and large, because of the employee dismissal. We can provide testing every two weeks. Now, if the White House mandates one testing every week then we will consider that. But it’s free to everyone.
“What I do is that I get in touch with all the people and CEOs and officials and etc to let them know that we are doing this but we have district coordinators in Midland and Odessa and others as well as volunteers. We kind of try to go after people that don’t have the ability to test. … The Hispanic market, the Salvation Army (and) we go to senior citizens centers, homeless shelters, independent school districts, assisted living places and anyone that wants us. We’ll be there for them. It depends on who the person is but it doesn’t take long to do the test.”
When setting up testing in communities, the organization has district coordinators and paid volunteers.
All that is required for the testing operation is a 100-square foot space for the tent, according to Community Wellness America’s website.
The process for the patient takes about 90 seconds to complete, including information gathering and the nasal swab test.
The lab then texts people their test results usually within 24 hours once they receive the specimen but it can also take longer, according to the organization.
“More than anything, we find testing to be a common ground on both sides as a preventative tool that allows communities to go out and congregate safely while safely reducing the risk of a community spread with the available service of receiving a test,” Barghlameno said. “They’re able to alleviate a lot of the concerns of whether or not we’re safe here. We’re getting new data from different countries that are showing how vaccines immunization are waning off and how all that affects break through cases of people who are vaccinated and get infected. So now we’re facing a wave of people who are vaccinated but are now coming back with positive results. … That’s kind of where we stand in taking proactive measures rather than reactive measures.”
