Phoenix, Arizona, Mayor Kate Gallego said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied multiple requests for the implementation of a large, drive-thru testing site similar to those in other cities, such as Houston.
“They said they’re trying to get away from that type of testing site … and they don’t want to open any new ones,” Gallego told the Arizona Republic.
The Democrat said she initially made the request for drive-thru testing centers in April but was denied because Arizona had a small outbreak compared to areas such as New York City. Now, Arizona has the highest coronavirus positivity rate in the nation, but FEMA has still denied placing a large-scale testing facility in Phoenix.
Daniel Ruiz, a representative for Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, said FEMA has been helping throughout the state, though the agency has not been providing help in the form of large-scale testing centers.
Dr. Cara Christ, the director for the Arizona Department of Health Services, said that FEMA has been “extremely helpful in increasing testing capacity and access” and that the agency has been having daily calls with her office to coordinate their response. She noted that FEMA had only set up 13 drive-thru testing centers throughout the country and that one was placed in Arizona on the Navajo Nation to assist Native Americans at the beginning of the pandemic when it was the hardest-hit part of the state.
Ruiz noted that Ducey, a Republican, believes that small, community-based testing centers are the best way to address the virus. He said Gallego’s office has not been in contact with the governor’s office to ask for assistance in expanding testing capacity.
Gallego noted that some testing centers have a wait time of more than two hours. She said the city needs faster options to give people diagnoses.
“These are people who are feeling sick and miserable and dehydrated to begin with, and we want to be able to get them tested,” she said.
A representative for FEMA told the Washington Examiner that the agency has provided the state with hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 tests. The representative noted that Phoenix has six community-based testing centers that have been set up via a partnership between the Health and Human Services Department and private companies, including Walgreens and CVS.
“FEMA continues to provide requested assistance to states, territories and tribes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In regard to testing, we have provided Arizona with 367,064 swabs and 381,994 media for a total of 749,058 testing supplies delivered to Arizona. The state decides where those supplies go within Arizona,” the FEMA representative said.
“Community-Based Testing Sites are handled by the Department of Health and Human Services. Through public-private partnerships with the federal government, there are currently 11 federally funded retail and pharmacy-based locations in partnership with CVS, Health Mart Walgreens, and Walmart in Arizona. Six of these sites are in the Phoenix area. There are an additional 64 pharmacy testing sites in Arizona that operate independently, with 13 of these sites located in the Phoenix area,” the representative added.
