Atlantic County Freeholder Chairman Frank Formica has a very good idea to implement a Coronavirus testing site in Atlantic County.

The Federal government is only funding two testing sites in New Jersey, located in Bergen and Monmouth Counties. That’s no good for Atlantic County or the other 18 Counties not named Bergen or Monmouth.

To be fair, Bergen and Monmouth have some of the highest infected levels in the state.

Should Formica’s vision become a reality, it will help to inspire additional confidence in our region. The Bergen and Monmouth sites are open. Atlantic County should move fast. Pick a location. Egg Harbor Township is centrally located and would be a good potential choice.

Also, sooner rather than later the ability to administer your own self test will be made available. This will be a major game-changer. Until then, giving people the opportunity to get screened can help with mitigation and containment.

With many people following the stay at home guidelines, this will help to ensure even more sense of urgency. If we’re going to be able to reopen our region for business at the earliest, responsible time, we need to employ an all hands on deck approach.

This includes an Atlantic County testing site. There’s no reason not to do it.

Atlantic County Administrator Gerry DelRosso has previously confirmed that the County and health care providers who wish to partner would bear the cost. To date, Atlantic County has only 7 known cases of the Coronavirus, however, it is widely accepted that many others have it, but present with little or no symptoms. This means that the actual number of those actually infected is unknown.

They can still infect others with the virus. This is the community spread factor that we’ve been focusing on.

One day soon, we will also need a test that will determine those healthy/recovered people who already had the Coronavirus.

This will help to reopen our region and the nation for business when there’s a better handle on healthy, or, already recovered people.

A Brookings Institution survey has placed Atlantic City as the 3rd worst city in America in terms of most jobs at risk from COVID-19 at a staggering 34.2 percent.

DelRosso has confirmed that the County has not spent any additional money because of the Coronavirus.

I believe him, but, this is beyond incredible. You’d think just ramping up additional proper cleaning and disinfecting of all County office spaces would result in thousands of dollars in necessary and justifiable expenses.

Since they’ve spent absolutely nothing extra since the Coronavirus struck; it’s time to spend extra now and open the Atlantic County COVID-19 testing site immediately.

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