SAN FRANCISCO—Due to large protests that have transpired throughout San Francisco, the city has set up a pop-up mobile testing site, where protestors can go to get tested for COVID-10 for free. The pop-up site will be open every-day until Tuesday, June 9. It is located at St. Mary’s Cathedral, at 1111 Gough St. The testing service is free, but appointments are required.

The clinic is free for people who have recently participated in protests who may be worried that they have been exposed to the virus. Even if they have no symptoms they are still allowed and encouraged to be tested.

Other testing sites across the city still remain available to individuals showing symptoms of the coronavirus, and for high-risk essential workers. City Test SF has two other testing sites, one on the Embarcadero, and the other in the South of Market area. Appointments are required for both locations as well.

While many protestors did wear masks, there were no efforts for social distancing. Masks alone are not enough to protect from COVID-19, and city officials are worried that a spike in cases could occur in the next couple weeks due to lack of the advised preventative measures at protests. The medical community has advised that if an individual was protesting and want to get tested, avoid doing it the day after because it will take a few days for the virus to replicate enough in the body to be detected.

The protests have left another challenge to cities, with a new problem for contact tracing. Due to the sheer number of people at the protests, successfully tracing thousands of people at protests will be difficult.