COVID-19 Mouth Swab Testing Every Monday 3:00-6:00pm Sponsored By City of Half Moon Bay
April 18, 2022 @ 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 3:00 pm on Monday, repeating indefinitely
Get tested for COVID-19 Here’s a list of where you can do that in Half Moon Bay:
Ted Adcock Community Center, 535 Kelly Avenue
Every Monday, 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Register: https://curative.
Senior Coastsiders, 925 Main Street, Half Moon Bay
Thursdays, 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Testing for older adults only (55+ and over) and caregivers
Register: https://curative.
Please contact your medical provider as more testing options may be available to you.
For additional testing sites outside of Half Moon Bay, including at the San Mateo Event Center and at neighborhood mobile sites in San Mateo County, visit www.smcgov.org/testing.
Hágase la prueba de COVID-19. Aquí hay una lista de dónde puede hacer eso en Half Moon Bay:
Centro Comunitario Ted Adcock, 535 Kelly Avenue
Todos los lunes, 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Regístrese: https://curative.com/sites/
Senior Coastsiders, 925 Main Street, Half Moon Bay
Jueves, 9:00 a.m .- 11:00 a.m.
Pruebas solo para adultos mayores (mayores de 55 años) y cuidadores
Regístrese: https://curative.com/sites/
Comuníquese con su proveedor médico, ya que es posible que tenga disponibles más opciones de pruebas.
Para lugares de prueba adicionales fuera de Half Moon Bay, incluso en el Centro de eventos de San Mateo y en sitios móviles del vecindario en el condado de San Mateo, visite www.smcgov.org/testing.
The Curative Covid Mouth Swab Process
NOTE:
The test doesn’t work if you ate or drank
ANYTHING within 20 min of taking the test.
When you come to be tested, this is the process you should expect.
1. They must cough rigorously three times to bring the fluids to be tested from their respiratory system to their mouths.
2. They must open their sealed test kits and pull out the swab and test vial, then tuck the kit away to leave their hands free.
3. They must open the swab from the correct end without touching the cotton end.
4. They must lower their masks and swab their whole mouth- roof, under the tongue, both cheeks, and lightly tap the back of throat being gentle not to make themselves gag – getting the cotton tip soaking wet. They must swab for 20 seconds (I use a stopwatch to time them.), which can seem like an eternity.
5. They must hold the swab like a lollipop in their mouth so it stays wet and nothing contaminated it while they open their test vial while it is straight up and down because there is a small amount of testing fluid in the bottom.
6. They must insert the cotton swab end into the test vial, put their thumb over the the top of the vial and break off the stick above the test tube.
7. They must twist (not push) the test tube tightly closed and invert the test vial 3 times to activate the test.
8. They must place the vial back into the test kit baggie and completely reseal the top of the kit so the test tube doesn’t fall out and get lost.
9. They must put the whole kit into the bin at the exit and the bin must be delivered to the lab within a finite period of time and then be processed in a correct and timely manner.
From Coastside CERT Coordinator Cythia Sherrill
So you can see each step must be carefully followed exactly as intended for the test to be accurate. Our CERT testers- Cindy Watson(former nurse), Tim Foster, San José events engineer, and me – are intense and meticulous about doing this right every single time. But there are enough steps that if one wasn’t carefully guided and observed things could go sideways at many points along the way, interfering with the accuracy of the test. We are very careful.
My personal sense is that the asymptomatic carriers are the hardest to detect with this testing process as somehow they don’t seem to have the same physiological response to the virus and therefore may not carry the same disease markers in their saliva, which is what we are testing.
Just want to be sure I recognize the other CERTs who are also there every week- Gail Evenari is an intake registrar, Michele Duke and Forrest Wunderlich are outdoor line managers, and Rusty Rosenberg & Sue Hawley are indoor line managers. Sometimes Dan Kenny comes. Carolyn Belknap’s husband, although not a CERT, joins us every week for outdoor line management.
The key takeaways are:
1) to be effective the test must be administered and processed properly and
2) if you get a negative test report but still have symptoms go get a second, different test right away.
Also the test doesn’t work if you ate or drank ANYTHING within 20 min of taking the test.
Finally, most people are predisposed to want a negative result so there are all kinds of conscious and unconscious factors at play that might impact the outcome and a self-administered test is the easiest to sway, which is not a fair test of its efficacy. It must be administered properly.
