(Ed.'s Note: Characteristic of local response to the overwhelming contagion of the CODIV-19, today we had a line stretching from the testing site at Iglesia de Restauracion y Poder on the corner of Jaime Zapata (old Coffeeport Road) and Robindale Road all the way back around Old Port Isabel Road and ending behind the Hackberry Street intersection. It's too bad that no one told these folks that today there would be no testing for virus at the site at the church. Instead, the church was handing out food.
A church spokesperson said that testing was scheduled for Saturday and that the church only leased the premises for a private organization that – for a fee – performed the COVID-19 test there.The City of Brownsville has three testing sites, at the Sports park, Port Clinic and Doctors Hospital on the US 77-83 expressway frontage road.
But if you look at the third photo from the top, a sign at the intersection of Old Port Isabel and Jaime Zapata advertises the BTXCares testing site and the arrow seems to point in the direction of the Robindale/Jaime Zapata intersection.
Did someone forget to tell these people that no testing was scheduled there? In talking to the waiting motorists, many said they were there for the COVID19 testing.
A man who parked on the shoulder in front and across the driveway at the start of the line (visible in the red t-shirt in the second photo) asked inside was told there was only food being dispensed and not virus testing and he said one would be better going to a private doctor because he had the test performed at the site July 3 and had not received his results yet.)