New York City is making coronavirus testing available to increasing numbers of its 8.4 million residents, as it aims to conduct 20,000 tests a day by the end of the month, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday.
Now that the city has more capacity — with tens of thousands of test kits being produced locally every week and more being purchased from out of state — three new categories of New Yorkers are being encouraged to get tested, de Blasio said in his daily news conference.
They are anyone with coronavirus symptoms, individuals who have been exposed to someone who has tested positive for the virus, and anyone who works in a congregate residential setting such as nursing homes, shelters and adult-care facilities — regardless of whether they have symptoms.
“Anyone in those new categories I talked about today, please take advantage of this testing opportunity,” de Blasio said. “It’s going to help you, your family, the people in your life, but it’s going to help us as well as we fight back the coronavirus in this city.”
In the early stages of the pandemic, coronavirus testing was close to impossible to come by.
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“Lack of widespread testing was our Achilles’ heel from day one, but we’re rewriting that story every day,” said de Blasio in a public statement. “Our effort to test and trace every New Yorker in need of a test is coming together at lightning speed, giving us the tools we need to defeat the virus once and for all.”
To accommodate testing, de Blasio said two more testing sites, in Washington Heights and Midwood, would be up and running by May 18 and a further 10 would be open by the week of May 25.
In New York City, there have been 186,293 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 15,349 people have died. A further 5,057 deaths are suspected to be due to the virus, according to the city’s health department.
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Extensive testing has been identified as a critical step in ending New York City’s lockdown, a target that is still weeks away at least.
In upstate New York, though, five regions have been given the go-ahead to partially reopen starting Friday.
Central New York on Thursday joined Mohawk Valley, Southern Tier, Finger Lakes, and the North Country in meeting all seven metrics to begin reopening when the statewide PAUSE order expires Friday, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Earlier this month, the governor laid out his seven-point criteria that regions of the state must meet to begin the first phase of reopening. They include 14 consecutive days of declining hospitalizations and deaths on a three-day rolling average; fewer than two new hospitalizations per 100,000 residents; 30% of hospital beds and specifically intensive-care beds available; 30 per 1,000 residents tested on a seven-day average; and at least 30 contact tracers per 100,000 residents.
The first businesses to return to work will include construction, manufacturing, all retail where curbside pickup is possible, as well as agriculture, forestry and fishing.
Other coronavirus developments from Thursday for the New York area:
NYPD: Calls for the resignation of New York City’s health commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot have come after reports emerged that she had rejected the NYPD’s request for more personal protective equipment in March and told a police official “I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops.” The mayor called the comment “inappropriate,” adding “if what is being reported is accurate, the commissioner needs to apologize to the men and women of the NYPD unquestionably.” Barbot has yet to respond.
Jersey Shore: New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced plans to reopen the Jersey Shore in time for Memorial Day weekend with social distancing guidelines in place.
New York state: In New York, 343,051 people have tested positive for coronavirus and 22,170 have died, according to the state’s health department. On Wednesday, there were 157 deaths, the fourth consecutive day of less than 200 fatalities across the state.
Also read: Stories of the lives lost in the COVID-19 pandemic
