Starting on Saturday, Santa Ana College will be offering free coronavirus testing for its students, employees and all city residents as positive cases continue, and campus gets closer to welcoming people back.
The free COVID-19 testing will be available to all Santa Ana residents, SAC students and Rancho Santiago Community College District employees through a partnership between the city of and RSCCD.
With some students and employees are scheduled to return to campus in the fall, Chancellor Marvin Martinez said he is hopeful the new testing will help ease some of the fears.
“In addition to the health and safety of our staff and students, we also see the partnership with the City of Santa Ana as a way of demonstrating we can keep cases down through testing at SAC. Our students will feel confident as we are testing our employees and students attending SAC so they can safely come to a face-to-face class,” Martinez said.
The push for an increase in COVID-19 testing in Santa Ana was in part due to the city identifying the top six zip codes with the highest number of COVID-19 case counts. The zip codes 92704 and 92706 were included in that list and are where SAC and RSCCD’s Centennial Education Center are located.
At the SAC site, students who have in-person classes and RSCCD employees will have first priority to be tested, with the goal of testing 400 to 600 people daily. Information about the availability of testing will be emailed to all students and RSCCD employees, and posted on the RSCCD and SAC websites.
Drive-up testing is by appointment only in SAC’s Parking Lot #7 and #8 with vehicles entering via the Bristol street entrance. People do not need to be showing symptoms to take the test. It is self-administered under the guidance of a medical professional and results are provided 48 to 72 hours following the test. No insurance is needed.
College officials said SAC nursing students will be assisting at the site and earning clinical in-person hours, but a physician and other licensed medical staff will be on site during testing at all times.
The SAC site testing hours will be 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday for eight weeks starting Saturday. Those who would like to be tested will need to pre-register for the test by either calling 877-362-9779 or visiting sac.edu or sccd.edu to complete a registration form. On the day of testing, people will need to bring a form of identification. Information is also available in Spanish and Vietnamese.
For more information on the free COVID-19 testing program, visit rsccd.edu or sac.edu.
