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NEDERLAND — Free COVID-19 testing is taking place next week in Nederland.

The event is open for the general public, not just residents of Nederland, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at the Nederland Recreation Center, 2301 Avenue H.

City officials said those that get tested should, hopefully, know their results by the end of the week.

Nederland City Manager Chris Duque said the city fields calls “every day” from the public looking for testing.

“A lot of these phone calls, based on the conversations, are coming from people on a fixed income or who would have issues paying $100 for a test,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we could reach out to the state and get their help in setting up another testing site.”

Nederland is working with the Texas Military Department, Division of Emergency Management, Emergency Medical Task Force and Health and Human Service to operate the testing site.

All Nederland employees will vacate the recreation center during testing and work from different locations next week.

Duque stressed that it is important residents realize next week’s testing takes place at the recreation center and not the Heritage Festival parking lot, like previous testing operations.

“Our numbers show there is still a problem in our community with this, so we want to go ahead and get this testing so we can get a better understanding and, hopefully, make these people that are sick aware they have it and what they need to do to deal with it,” Duque said.

On Friday, the City of Nederland announced it received information that the number of total positive COVID-19 test results remained at 293 with 12 new positive cases reported in the previous 24 hours.

Active cases for Nederland residents are still believed to be more than 120.

“Hopefully, at the end of this, (those with COVID-19) are better, and we can go ahead with everybody doing their part: social distancing, using good hygiene and wearing a mask to help us get this back under control,” Duque said.

“The state has been a very strong partner and we appreciate their assistance.”