DUBLIN, Ga. — The Dublin City School District is using a new safety measure to try to fight off COVID-19.
The district currently enforces social distancing, requires masks, and now, they're giving students and staff members the opportunity to get tested.
Derrick McCrae and Shelbyann Thrasher say they won't forget the first time they got tested for COVID-19.
"I got scared. I mean, it went real far," Derrick McCrae said.
"They went all the way up there. It didn't feel good at all, pretty sure I started crying," Shelbyann Thrasher said.
But their second time? A breeze.
"This one was noninvasive. It was fun." McCrae said.
Dublin City Schools kicked off their voluntary COVID testing Wednesday morning at three schools, including Dublin High.
McCrae and Thrasher both chose to opt in.
"I dance, so it's important that I'm still safe and I don't get any of the younger little babies that I dance with sick," Thrasher said.
"I'm around a lot of old folks, elderly, so I just felt it would be more safer for myself and them, so I wanted to take the chance and make sure that I'm OK," McCrae said.
Stephanie Stubbs, Dublin's district safety coordinator, says students and staff members who opt in will get tested weekly.
"This has been an initiative that the state has assisted the schools with to provide us with an additional layer of mitigation for our schools to combat this crazy pandemic," Stubbs said.
Stubbs says almost 400 elementary school students are signed up to get tested, and 300 students in both the middle and high school.
"The biggest thing is trying to catch it so that it does not spread. The biggest part is with those asymptomatic individuals. Several students will go in and test because they've had a family member or somebody close to them has tested positive for COVID, but they still have showed zero symptoms the entire time," Stubbs said.
She says testing will help the schools stop the spread of the virus quickly and early.
"Then we can keep students in seat, and in school for the remainder of the school year," Stubbs said.
Testing will last through the rest of the year, and students and staff can opt in at any time.
"Just do it. I mean, at this point, you have nothing to lose. You'll be fine," Thrasher said.
The district has seen a total of 221 COVID-19 cases among staff and students.
Currently, they just have two.
Stubbs says they hope that with testing, the number goes down to zero.