Raimondo Announces “Mandatory” Testing for RIers, But No One Know What It Means, Including Governor
GoLocalProv News Team
Raimondo Announces “Mandatory” Testing for RIers, But No One Know What It Means, Including Governor
"We’re going to come out next week with a new system of mandatory testing for asymptomatic people," said Raimondo during her weekly press conference.
"It doesn’t mean every Rhode Islander is going to have be tested every week, that would be impractical, not that useful, and prohibitively expensive," she said.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBut, by the end of the press conference, she seemed to disavow her own pronouncement and what was a central theme of her weekly press event, adding more confusion.
"We can’t really [force people to be tested who don’t want to be tested] — you can’t, you offer it. It’s exactly what we’ve been doing in nursing homes for months. Which is working. We offer it to every resident and every worker in every nursing home on a regular basis. So no, you can never force anybody and we would never do that. But we can offer it and make it free and make it easy," said Raimondo.
"We’re still figuring it out. We want to try and have more systematic testing -- just like we have in nursing homes — of enough people in Rhode Island so we get an accurate picture of how much virus there is in the community. Does that make sense?" said Raimondo.
After the press conference, GoLocal pressed Raimondo’s office on what the Governor meant by mandatory testing and her spokesman refused to respond to questions about the announcement of mandatory asymptomatic testing and only said, “As the Governor said today, we are developing a more robust asymptomatic testing program and will have more to say on that next week.”
Indicators Show Substantial Increase in Virus in RI
In the backdrop of the “mandatory” announcement is the realization that Rhode Island’s coronavirus indicators are up -- and up substantially.
Hospitalizations have nearly doubled in the past month and as of Wednesday, the number had risen to 131.
Dr. Michel Fine said on GoLocal LIVE on Friday that Rhode Island has "robust community spread" -- and warned that all the indicators seem to be going in the wrong direction.
RI Continues to Miss Targets on Testing
Rhode Island’s coronavirus testing program has been Helter-Skelter throughout the pandemic. Raimondo pledged in June that Rhode Island's testing program would be at 20,000 a day by September, but the Raimondo administration abandoned that goal soon thereafter.
This past weekend much of Rhode Island’s testing facilities were closed and on Monday fewer than 6,000 tests were conducted.
Raimondo continues to claim Rhode Island has the best testing, but also continues to miss nearly every announced target for her program.