Johnson County, Kansas has begun randomized testing of thousands of county residents for COVID-19, starting with 500 on Friday morning.
The county's health department sent out voluntary surveys across the county asking residents if they'd like to be tested and if they've had, have or haven't had symptoms of COVID-19.
There were more than 60,000 responses in two days, says JOCO health department director Dr. Sanmi Areola.
Ultimately 2,000 people will be randomly selected for this series of testing, which is made possible by $400,000 in funding by Johnson County Commissioners to increase testing in the county.
"We know that people are going undiagnosed, which gives us a really incomplete picture," said county epidemiologist Elizabeth Holzschuh.
Ready to start testing Johnson County residents for COVID-19 at our first drive thru clinic. Thank you to the @OlathePolice for helping direct traffic this morning. pic.twitter.com/gyvBJydJKX
— JCDHE (@JOCOHealth) April 10, 2020
"While they may not show symptoms, they may be exposing the rest of the population with underlying conditions who may be at risk," says Areola. "So that's part of why we are sampling an entire group, so that we can get a better picture of the virus's activity in Johnson County."
The drive-up tests will be conducted three more times in the next two weeks.
