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Officials Concerned About 'Testing Desert' In Attleboro Area As RI COVID Cases Surge

ATTLEBORO (CBS) - Attleboro is a city of 45,000 people and its COVID-19 case number is approaching 1,700. Yet, there is no state testing site within about 45 minutes from the city in Fall River. Officials are now asking the state to establish a site in the region.

"Identifying who has this virus and getting tested to find out if you have it or if somebody close to you might have it, if you request that they go tested, that's important," said Attleboro Mayor Paul Heroux.

There are a number of private clinics or hospitals where someone can get tested. Yet the region between Brockton and Fall River has been described as a testing "black hole."

"There's a testing desert in the Greater Attleboro area," said State Senator Paul Feeney of Foxboro. "We have increasing amounts of cases obviously with the second surge."

Now that COVID is exploding in Rhode Island, people in the border towns are increasingly worried.

"The virus doesn't know borders right, it doesn't know any town boundaries," Feeney said. "The bottom line is a lot of the people that I represent in the communities in my district especially in the southern half, they go to doctor's appointments in Rhode Island, they go shopping in Rhode Island."

Both Heroux and Feeney are pushing Governor Charlie Baker and the COVID Command Center to establish a free testing site somewhere on the I-95 corridor.

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