COVID Testing Site Opens For Manatee County Students, Staff

BRADENTON, FL — A new COVID-19 testing site only for Manatee County Schools students and employees and Manatee County workers will open in Bradenton Tuesday.

The new site at Marble Park, located at 3675 53rd Ave. E., will offer free PCR rapid tests, according to an email and phone message sent to all 6,000 school district employees Sunday night.

A school district ID must be shown to get tested at the park. The site will be open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Employees return to school Tuesday following winter break. A similar message will be sent to all parents and guardians in the district before students return to school Thursday, Mike Barber, communications director, said.

“As we prepare to return to work on Tuesday…we do so during another surge in COVID-19 cases,” the email to district employees said. “During this surge, the School District will work closely with the Florida Department of Health Manatee to do everything we can to keep positive cases out of our schools and support sites.”

Ahead of winter break, there was only one confirmed COVID-19 case among school district staff — an employee at Braden River Elementary School tested positive for the virus — and no student cases reported, according to the most recent update of the district’s COVID-19 dashboard on Dec. 21.

Coronavirus cases have surged in Florida since then, though. The school district’s dashboard won’t be updated until schools reopen.

Florida Department of Health data shows 298,455 new cases statewide and a new case positivity rate of 26.5 percent reported in Florida from Dec. 24-30.

In Manatee County during this period, 2,805 new cases and an 18.2 percent new case positivity rate were reported, according to the FDOH.

In Sunday’s email to employees, school administrators asked anyone who is sick, has COVID-19 symptoms or is waiting on results of a COVID-19 test to “stay home until they are symptom free and cleared to return to work or school.”

In addition to the new Marble Park testing site, MCR Health School-Based Health Clinics at Manatee Elementary School and Southeast High School also offer COVID-19 testing, vaccinations and booster shots by appointment to district employees, Monday through Friday.

Any additional COVID-19 mitigation measures and protocols will be emailed to employees Tuesday, according to the district’s message Sunday.

“Working together, we can help weather this surge just as we did with the one at the very beginning of the school year,” the district said.