Twelve community health centers will receive COVID-19 test kits from the state to expand testing in historically underserved communities in Eastern and Central Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker said on Wednesday.

Baker announced the launch of an initiative with the Mass League of Community Health Centers and Quest Diagnostics to offer testing to members of the public who are sick or have been exposed to someone infected with the coronavirus.

Quest plans to ship 2,200 tests per day to community health centers in Quincy, Brockton, Lowell, Fall River, New Bedford, Worcester, Provincetown and Boston, Baker said.

“As everybody knows, community health centers provide comprehensive health services for people across the commonwealth. These facilities are also deeply rooted in the fabric of their beloved communities," the Republican governor said on Wednesday during a news conference. “They’re trusted partners to addressing the broad health needs of underserved populations.”

Three sites in Boston will receive COVID-19 test kits: The East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, the Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury and Codman Square Community Health Center in Dorchester.

“Similar to other areas of the country, we’re seeing clear health disparities between different races and ethnicities,” said Manny Lopes, president and CEO of the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, which serves 90,000 residents a year. “Many of our patients are the essential workers. They work in supermarkets, restaurants and health care facilities.”

Manny Lopes, president and CEO of the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, delivers remarks with Gov. Charlie Baker at the Massachusetts State House.Sam Doran/State House News Service

The health center serves more than 40% of Chelsea residents and 65% of East Boston residents, as well as patients from Winthrop, Everett and Revere, Lopes said.

Chelsea, a predominantly working-class Latino city, had 977 COVID-19 cases as of Monday morning, city officials wrote on Facebook. Of those patients, 242 people have recovered and 83 have died.

The East Boston health center has a drive-thru testing site at Suffolk Downs and a walk-through testing site. Lopes said the health center also plans to launch a mobile testing van with Cataldo Ambulance.

Residents who show symptoms or who came into contact with coronavirus patients can call one of those local community health centers for a testing appointment, Lopes and Baker said.

According to the governor’s office, Quest has sent 2,255 COVID-19 tests kits to community health centers in Boston and Brockton. By Friday, the company plans to ship another 5,000 kits to the 12 community health centers.

The Whittier Street Health Center and East Boston Neighborhood Center started offering rapid testing to residents last week, scheduling appointments by phone.

All three of the Boston community health centers that are receiving test kits got an infusion of funding from the Boston Resiliency Fund to continue testing.

The state sent test kits to nursing homes and other facilities across the state so clinical staff could test their own residents as part of the mobile testing initiative. The test kit deliveries were meant to offer an alternative to sending the National Guard to the facility to conduct on-site testing.

The state paused the test kit part of the program after under one-third of the test kits sent to nursing homes were returned to the state for testing. Many of those that were returned were leaking or otherwise poorly returned, state officials said.

When asked what it would take to resume the program, Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said testing involves more than just swabbing.

“I don’t want to be particularly graphic on TV, but it’s more than just doing a quick Qtip swab. It actually does require some level of skill,” she said. “We have quality control over the National Guard. When you send it to X number of hundreds of nursing homes, we didn’t have the same level of quality control."

Sudders said she hopes to “rekindle” the program, but she did not respond to follow-up questions about what specific best practices could be implemented as officials went on to answer questions about plasma therapy, a push for a “soft reopening” for hair salons and whether July Fourth celebrations would go on as scheduled.

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