SHEBOYGAN (NBC 26) -- The Wisconsin National Guard say they dispatched a team to a Sheboygan senior living facility to establish a COVID-19 (coronavirus) mobile testing site early Sunday morning.
About 30 Citizen Soldiers and Airmen were sent to the Sunny Ridge Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, according to the Wis. National Guard. They say facility staff and residents were tested for COVID-19.
Local health officials identified an outbreak at the facility over the course of the past week, prompting a coordinated response from both local and state level authorities.
According to the Wis. National Guard, they established a drive-thru testing for facility staff before moving inside the senior living facility to collect samples from residents.
“Testing like this is prioritized from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) and really what we’re trying to do is stop further spread of outbreaks of CVOID-19 within this facility,” Libby Jacobs, with the Sheboygan Co. Department of Health and Human Services, said. “Having testing of both staff and residents will help us quantify and reduce further spread of COVID-19 in both the staff, residents, and within the community.”
“The National Guard is coming in and helping us with the manpower, with both medics as well as decontamination,” Jacobs added. “They’re staffed to help provide that testing and the coordination related to getting all of these residents and staff tested, as well as collecting specimens in a timely manner.”
The Guard’s mission in Sheboygan represents the latest in the Wisconsin National Guard’s ongoing role in support of the state’s response to COVID-19.
Wisconsin National Guard troops are currently helping staff in two state-run voluntary self-isolation facilities in Milwaukee and Madison and another Milwaukee-run facility with medics providing medical monitoring as well as administrative support. Approximately 12 personnel are staffing each state-run facility, while nearly 30 are assisting at the Milwaukee-run facility.
Meanwhile, the Wisconsin National Guard is actively supporting the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) in multiple ways. The Guard is assisting WEC by procuring and distributing supplies such as wipes, hand sanitizer, and spray bottles to polling sites needed to ensure a safe and sanitary election April 7.
Wis. National Guard says a yet-to-be-determined number of troops are in the process of mobilizing to state active duty to serve as poll workers in the face of a shortage of volunteers across the state.
According to the guard, troops are simultaneously conducting warehousing operations in support of Wisconsin DHS where they are receiving personal protective equipment (PPE) shipments at warehouses, repackaging it, and then distributing it to sites that need PPE.
A team of six Wisconsin National Guard medics assisted staff at a senior living facility in Grafton, Wisconsin, for three days in March while the facility dealt with a staffing shortfall after a COVID-19 outbreak there.
Also last month, a team of 30 Wisconsin National Guard personnel assisted the Wisconsin DHS transport a group of Wisconsin citizens back to their homes after they returned to our state from a cruise ship that had confirmed cases of COVID-19 onboard.
