FLOYD COUNTY, Ind. — The Floyd County Health Department will soon have a mobile unit as a tool to continue to fight the spread of COVID-19.
The health department applied for grant money from the Floyd County Legacy Foundation when the coronavirus pandemic was just starting. Now the Floyd County Legacy Foundation along with Samtec Cares Foundation and Floyd Memorial Hospital Foundation have partnered together to fund the mobile unit.
"The more you can get access to your healthcare the better off the community is as a whole,” said Brad Striegel, president of the Floyd County Council and a member of the Legacy Foundation board. "It was already something that we were considering, but we just moved the timeline up because of the pandemic that we're in."
Striegel says grant money would usually be awarded in September, but officials found it an urgent need in the community.
The mobile unit in total will cost around $73,000 according to Striegel. He says the vehicle has already been purchased and should arrive by the end of the week. Once it gets to the health department, it will need to be worked on to get it ready to go, but Striegel says health officials plan to do that in a few days.
The Floyd County Health Department in a statement has thanked the foundations providing the funds, saying, “We would like to say we are very thankful to our community partners who have given us the opportunity to purchase this mobile unit. This will allow us to broaden our capability to offer offsite testing for COVID19. We are most grateful.”
Streigel says after the pandemic the unit will continue to be an asset that moves the county forward.
"If we have any problems with infectious diseases in our community we have a quicker response and a better response by going to particular sites instead of asking people to come to us,” he said.
RELATED: Real-time updates: LIVE | Gov. Andy Beshear provides daily briefing on COVID-19 in Kentucky
►Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.