Sen. Tom Carper visited a Coronavirus testing event in Georgetown Thursday to highlight the accessibility of testing in the First State.
Delaware National Guard helped run the event — as it does for many testing sites around the state. Carper stressed the importance of the Guard’s work.
“The National Guard are there to help us, citizen soldiers, help us for a couple of centuries now. And in the midst of the first pandemic we’ve had in a hundred years, they’re here again. And not just here at this drive through but throughout our state to make sure we get tested.”
Jeff Sands, the community relations coordinator at the Delaware Emergency Management Agency, also toured the site.
Sands says there’s more than enough capacity to take in people at their testing sites, and results are coming in quicker than before.
Results that used to take 3-4 days are now turned around in 24 hours, according to Sands.
People who want to get tested can find a location near them at the state's website: Coronavirus.delaware.gov. Testing is free and symptoms are not required.
Carper took his own coronavirus test at Delaware Technical Community College in Georgetown to show just how easy it was. Free, saliva-based testing events where symptoms aren’t required are held throughout the state each week.
Carper also discussed the economic effects of the pandemic. The extra $600 a week in federal unemployment assistance has now run out, and so far, there isn’t anything on the table that both sides of the aisle can agree on.
Carper says he’s advocating for a new way of dispersing federal benefits: tie the system to the state’s unemployment rate.
“But there should be some correlation between how high is the unemployment in the state and how much the compensation would be. It shouldn’t just be flat across. In states where you have 16 percent unemployment or 6 percent unemployment, the amount would be the same; that doesn’t make much sense to me. The unemployment benefits should reflect and be correlated with the level of unemployment within the state.”
The Senate is expected to reconvene September 8th unless they can come to an agreement on a Coronavirus relief bill before then.
