Rapid coronavirus testing is coming to Fort Worth in time for major rodeo events
Fort Worth will have 30,000 rapid coronavirus tests available for the public within a week — in time for an influx of visitors for the National Finals Rodeo.
The tests are part of the city’s plan to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 at events related to the National Finals Rodeo. The rodeo itself, at Globe Life Field in Arlington, is expected to draw roughly 15,000 a night, but smaller related events in Fort Worth could bring close 10,000 to the city. Virus and public health experts have said smaller events will lead to coronavirus outbreaks.
Fort Worth Fire Chief Jim Davis, who has become the city’s unofficial testing czar, said he hopes the rapid tests will encourage people who are symptomatic or even just worried they may have the virus to get tested. The test will be available to Fort Worth residents and visitors at no cost. The city’s free saliva testing, which takes about 30 hours to process, will also be available.
If the rapid tests are successful, Davis said he wants to deploy them routinely in Fort Worth.
“If this works in the manner I’m hoping it does it could be embedded in what we do every day,” he said.
Testing is only effective if large numbers of people are tested and those who are positive quarantine, two public health experts told the Star-Telegram last week during interviews about Fort Worth’s efforts to mitigate coronavirus spread at the National Finals Rodeo events. Diane Cervantes, director of HSC Fort Worth’s epidemiology department, and Benjamin Neuman, a Texas A&M University-Texarkana virologist, both said the only way to ensure no one is infected is to test everyone who enters an event, a nearly impossible feat.
“Just voluntary ‘Why don’t you go take yourself for a test if it’s not too inconvenient’ is not something that worked particularly well,” Neuman said.
But Davis said the rapid testing will help people “say yes instead of saying no.”
“We’re trying to do everything we can do to make it as easy as possible for people to do the right thing,” Davis said.
Tarrant County Public Health officials have repeatedly warned residents to stay home as much as possible and to avoid gathering in large groups. Those warnings included a text sent Nov. 25 to 800,000 county residents urging people to stay home, to wear a face mask and to only have Thanksgiving celebrations with their household as coronavirus continues to surge.
Specific locations have not been determined but Davis said testing sites will be open at the Fort Worth Convention Center, Will Rogers Memorial Center and in the Stockyards district. If someone tests positive, he or she will be asked to quarantine and may be provided a second test, Davis said. Temperature checks will be required at the Convention Center, Will Rogers and Cowtown Coliseum. Those with high temperatures will be immediately provided a rapid test.
The goal is to segregate infected people from the general public and ensure community testing sites are not overburdened during a time when thousands of visitors will be in the city, he said.
The tests come from Vault Health, which is affiliated with Rutgers University in New Jersey and is the same partner the city has used for the saliva testing. Patients receive a nasal swab that is processed on site within 10 to 15 minutes.
Davis has been at the forefront of public testing since early in the pandemic.
When it became clear in March that nursing homes would be a hot spot for COVID-19 spread, Davis and the city obtained 20,000 tests and formed a team of firefighters and paramedics. That team works with Tarrant County Public Health to test hot spots like nursing homes, prisons and other communal living facilities in the county. Gov. Greg Abbott copied the framework for the program for a statewide hot spot testing team.
If the rapid tests prove useful, Davis said they could be used as an alternative for the slower saliva tests for those who symptomatic or essential employees. They could be deployed to schools, fire stations and nursing homes.
“We can get an immediate result, and we can have high confidence that you’re positive, or you’re not,” Davis said.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 4:15 PM.
