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Roughly 66 percent of Houstonians rely on city's public sites to get tested for COVID-19

The numbers show roughly two-thirds of people tested in the city of Houston went to public sites at one of the stadiums or UMMC and TDEM locations.
Credit: KHOU
Testing at a Houston Health Department site

HOUSTON — Roughly 226,000 Houstonians have been tested for COVID-19 in the city since the pandemic began. 

As of Tuesday morning, 44,396 tests had been conducted at the two Houston Health Department FEMA-affiliated community based testing sites at Butler and Delmar Stadiums.

Approximately 104,000 tests have been conducted via Houston Health's partner sites (United Memorial Medical Center, Texas Division of Emergency Management), Houston Health's mobile unit and strategic outreach.

That means about two-thirds of people tested in the city of Houston went to one of the public locations offered by the Houston Health Department, United Memorial Medical Center, the Texas Department of Emergency Management, or mobile sites. The remainder went to private locations, based off of data from HHD.

"This illustrates the need to continue mass testing sites, whether through another extension of the current FEMA model or though other routes that we’re exploring," said a spokesperson for the Houston Health Department.

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On Tuesday, the city reported an additional 1,060 cases, the third-highest single daily count since the pandemic began. On June 22, the city reported roughly 1,789 cases, and 1,317 on June 29.

The city recently asked FEMA to continue funding its Butler and Delmar Stadium sites, which can currently each perform 650 tests a day. 

A Harris County Public Health spokesperson said it has tested a total of 101,157 people at its public testing sites.

If you want to visit one of the city's testing sites, you can make an appointment here, or visit: https://houstonemergency.org/covid-19-testing/ 

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