Since April 2020, FAMU’s Bragg Memorial Stadium has housed a free COVID-19 testing site, which has been convenient not only for FAMU students, but also the general public.
The site provides thousands of rapid tests daily. At the site, you are able to walk up, register online and get tested all in less than an hour. Results are usually sent out within 30 minutes.
Now, because of the increased traffic, FAMU is opening a second COVID-19 site only accessible for FAMU faculty, staff and students. The new site will be located at FAMU’s employee clubhouse on South Adams Street. FAMU is also working to include over 800 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine at the new site. The vaccines are scheduled for health workers and nursing students first. Once they have received their vaccination, faculty and students 65 years and older will be eligible for the vaccine.
The testing site at FAMU is run by the Florida Division of Emergency Management. The White House Initiative supplied FAMU with 7,000 rapid test kits. Faculty and students can expect their results no later than 30 minutes.
The sense of urgency for the new site has become more important because new rules have been set. FAMU has now required faculty, staff and students to have negative test results before coming on campus as well as every two weeks prior to returning on campus. Once staff and students receive their results back, they will be able to upload the results to a portal through the FAMU app.
The first two weeks of the spring semester were scheduled to be taught remote. In-person, HyFlex classes began Tuesday.
In a recent news release, FAMU President Larry Robinson said, “This new initiative is part of our strategy to keep our students, faculty and staff safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Tanya Tatum, FAMU’s director of Student Health Services, said she fully supports the new testing site. Tatum said that the new testing site is needed to protect the FAMU community.
“If you look at the numbers, they are incredible. They did about 3,200 tests on Tuesday,” Tatum told the Tallahassee Democrat. “We’ve put in a testing protocol for our community for spring semester and we are asking everyone to get tested.”
The new testing site opened on Monday