Healthy Yolo Together — which, like its sister organization, Healthy Davis Together, operates in partnership with UC Davis — opened a COVID-19 testing site in West Sacramento this week.

And, come next week, officials said, UC Davis employees and students who visit the site should be able to have their test results entered into the Health-e-Messaging portal automatically.

The guidelines to make this happen are the same that employees and students are following at two Healthy Davis Together testing sites (Veterans Memorial Center and HDT at Research Park):

• Drop in for your test (do not make an appointment).
• Identify yourself as a UC Davis employee or student.

Now, with the new West Sacramento site, employees and students have three alternatives to the Activities and Recreation Center, or ARC, for required COVID-19 testing:

• West Sacramento City Hall — 1110 W. Capitol Ave., open weekdays, 9:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m. and 1:30-5:30 p.m.
• HDT at Research Park — 1632 Da Vinci Court in south Davis, open seven days a week, 8-11:15 a.m. and noon-5:30 p.m.
• Veterans Memorial Center — 203 E. 14th St., open weekdays, 8:30-11:30 a.m. and 12:45-4:30 p.m.

All three sites offer free saliva-based tests for anyone in the community, with or without COVID-19 symptoms. Appointments can be arranged on the Healthy Davis Together/Healthy Yolo Together website; walk-ins are also welcome (and recommended for UC Davis employees and students).

West Sacramento site

In a news release, Healthy Yolo Together officials said the COVID-19 infection rate in Sacramento prompted increased demand for testing — and that, as a result of more people being tested, case numbers dropped significantly, from almost 300 new cases per week to just under 50.

Healthy Yolo Together also provides on-site weekly COVID-19 testing for students and staff in partnership with the Washington Joint Unified School District.

“While community test positivity rates and vaccinations are trending in the right direction, our community continues to see COVID-19 cases,” Mayor Martha Guerrero said. “That’s why expanding free COVID-19 testing by opening a new community testing site at City Hall with Healthy Yolo Together is so important — we want more people to have access to free, reliable testing.”

Sheri Belafsky, medical director for Healthy Yolo Together and director of the Medical Surveillance Program for UC Davis Health, said: “When I think about where we were last year at this time, there were so many unknowns and we had no vaccines. Now we have the tools that we know work to protect one another — testing, vaccines, masking up. Let’s use them.”