Coronavirus mobile testing bus coming to Imperial County

Additional resources roll into the Valley - CBS 13's Alexandra Rangel reports

EL CENTRO, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) - As coronavirus cases increase in Imperial County so does the need for coronavirus medical aid.

COVID-19 cases in Imperial County have nearly doubled since Friday. The county is now inching towards 1,400 positive cases.

The big concern health officials have is that the entire state of California is surging at the same time.

During the first wave of the pandemic back in March, Imperial County saw a rise in cases much later than bigger counties in the state, allowing for the state to share resources and provide mutual aid as it was needed.

Now that the entire state is surging simultaneously, resources are limited, but California is still answering the call.

The state recently sent a team of extra medical staff to local hospitals.

This week the state health department also approved an increase to the county’s testing capacity, which includes a traveling strike team.

“It’s a team of four that allows us to strategically place them where we see outbreaks occurring. Such as a skilled nursing facility or if there’s an employer that sees an outbreak occurring we can deploy the strike team to that location," said Jeff Lamoure, Imperial County Public Health Department deputy director.

The county was also approved for a mobile bus testing site.

“Our goal is to go to a location and test their employees in large numbers. If we want to set up a testing event at the border, maybe testing at 1:00 a.m. we can deploy the mobile bus to that location. It's a full wrap-around service. They have four testing units on the mobile unit itself," said Lamoure.

The mobile bus and testing strike team are expected to be up and running by the first week of December.

The mobile bus alone can test up to 520 people daily.