The city of Los Angeles is expanding its criteria for who is eligible to get free testing for the novel coronavirus.
Starting Thursday, all of the city’s frontline workers can get tested for COVID-19 whether they have symptoms or not.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who made the announcement at a press briefing Wednesday night, said the frontline workers include health care professionals, first responders, grocery store workers and critical government personnel.
“We wish we could open that up to everybody, but I think we all know that we have firefighters and police officers, doctors, nurses, janitors at hospitals, folks that are in grocery stores and pharmacies that are putting themselves out on the line,” Garcetti said. “And we want to make sure they are healthy, that they have the peace of mind knowing they’re healthy, and because they interact with so many people, that we can make sure they are not spreading it.”
The city’s public testing sites have the capacity to test 12,200 people per day, according to Garcetti.
