At a press conference on June 30, National City Mayor Alejandra Sotelo-Solis announced the opening of a new state of California free community COVID-19 testing site at the National City Kimball Senior Center located at 1221 D Ave. This is in addition to its current testing sites located at San Ysidro Health, Samahan Clinic, the County of San Diego on West 18th St. and Paradise Valley Hospital.
Sotelo-Solis said the the City Council unanimously supported this project and was the first city in the county to require face masks be worn in public settings. She said with that came educational efforts and demanded more testing efforts for South Bay communities.
“The city of National City has been at the forefront of battling the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said. “As of June 29, the county reported 638 positive COVID-19 cases making our community less than 5 percent of the positive cases countywide.”
Sotelo-Solis said National City’s rate of infection is due to many of its residents being deemed essential workers, including caregivers, grocery workers and healthcare personnel.
“Unfortunately, inequities in the healthcare system shine a bright light on our community’s underlying vulnerabilities,” she said. “With two commonly linked to COVID-19 being diabetes and heart disease. These facts and the lack of access to local healthcare insurance coverage we are eager to partner with the state of California on this free walk-in, by appointment, testing facility here at our Kimball Senior Center.”
Sotelo-Solis emphasized that currently, COVID-19 is affecting 50 percent of those between the ages of 20 to 49 years old.
“This is why I support the county’s efforts to press pause and reevaluate how our reopening is affecting this infection rate,” she said. “We continue to see the growing demand for T3: testing, tracing and treatment. This will provide our fifth testing site in our 91950 ZIP code area.”
