Monterey County unveils mobile COVID-19 clinic

MONTEREY, Calif. —

A new mobile health clinic is rolling out in Monterey County and it’ll be the first of its kind in the county to offer rapid PCR COVID tests. Operators say test results will be emailed to people within minutes, not days as is standard with a regular PCR test.

“It's very fast once we get our samples collected and we get them on a plate you can expect results in about thirtyish minutes, for PCR it's very fast,” said Corey DeHaven, chief technology officer for Mobility Health.

Plans call for rolling it out to rural underserved communities; taking vaccines and tests to those who may face challenges accessing healthcare.

“We have to make this easy for people as easy as possible it needs to be free,” said Kim Stemler with the Monterey County COVID Collaborative.

“We need to go to places they're comfortable being and places they already are regularly which is why so many of the sites that we're going to go to are school sites because families are used to going to schools,” Stemler added.

The mobile rapid lab is a partnership between the Monterey County COVID Collaborative, the Packard Foundation, and UC Berkeley. The Visiting Nurses Association will also be offering vaccinations. An all-in-one COVID health clinic on wheels, as it’s being described.

“We wanted something that had everything that had all vaccinations including for children that had testing and this is even better than antigen testing this has rapid PCR testing which is just the best you can get,” said Stemler.

The first mobile clinic will be Saturday at San Vicente Elementary School in Soledad, from 2 to 5 p.m.

The rapid PCR tests are free and no appointment is needed, the clinics are walk-up only.