The Brownsville City Commission will vote Tuesday on two contracts that will allow the city’s health department to continue to provide COVID-19 testing to the community.
Documents indicate the city plans to contract with South Texas Medical Associates, dba, as Reliable Urgent Care, and with Port Clinic to conduct the testing.
Reliable Urgent Care over the weekend provided hundreds of tests to individuals who showed up at the Brownsville Event Center to be tested for COVID-19. At least 400 tests were conducted on Saturday alone.
Health officials believe people getting tested for the virus is due to the spike in Omicron cases.
The reason for all the testing right now is because the Omicron variant caused a sudden spike in cases and a lot of people are being told right around now that at Christmas time when everybody was getting together they were exposed. A lot of people are getting sick because the Omicron is far more contagious than Delta and can cause breakthrough infections even in fully vaccinated people” said Dr. James Castillo, Cameron County health authority, in an earlier interview.
According to each contract, the city is requesting viral test kits, a project manager/administrator, a clinical operations manager, one nurse practitioner, physician assistant and additional registered nurses and three medical assistant support staff.
Funding for the COVID-19 test will come from FEMA or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Both contracts state the term of “this Agreement shall be month-to-month, up to one (1) year in response to COVID-19. The term of this agreement may be extended past the initial one (1) year in response to COVID-19 with a thirty (30) days written notice by the City to the Contractor. The CITY has the option to terminate this agreement with a thirty (30) days written notice to the Contractor in response to COVID-19.”
Tuesday’s meeting will begin at 5 p.m. at the Brownsville Public Library Main Branch in the public meeting room, 2600 Central Blvd.
