SAN ANTONIO — Coronavirus cases are going up nationally. After many families chose to spend the Thanksgiving holiday season together, the risk of exposure is going up as well.
“We kind of just spent some time with family, and we’re about to go back to work soon. So, we wanted to make sure before we go to work we don’t want to expose anyone. We also want the peace of mind,” San Antonio resident Gilbert Hernandez said.
Hernandez says he showed up to the AT&T Center Monday with no symptoms but wanted to make sure he wasn’t carrying the virus without knowing.
“I think it’s very important because you never know. You don’t want to go around your loved ones, older people especially, and be exposing people if you don’t know yourself,” Hernandez said.
Community Labs is the organization in charge of the asymptomatic testing center.
“There’s plenty of testing out there if you have symptoms, and that’s already there. What we wanted to focus on were the asymptomatic people, and the silent spreaders.” Community Labs President Sal Webber said.
Webber says they have three different testing centers across San Antonio that are free to the public. One testing center at the AT&T Center Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the Ramirez and Cuellar Community Centers Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m..
Before the holiday break Webber says they were seeing a 40% weekly increase in people showing up to be tested, but this week alone they expect to see a 100% increase.
“If you don’t know that you have it, then you don’t know that you need to be even more careful and completely self-isolated,” Webber said.
Last weekend San Antonio passed 80,000 total coronavirus infections, and Webber says more people need to consider being tested especially if they have no symptoms to be sure they aren’t adding to that already large number.
“I got a little cotton swab in my nose and that was it. They told us in 24 hours we’d get our results in an email,” Hernandez said.