(Gothamist) NYC Opens 25 More COVID Testing Sites To Meet Holiday Demand
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The morning before Thanksgiving, Penn Station was far less crowded with holiday travelers than in years past. But some who were visiting the travel hub on Wednesday weren’t getting on a train — instead, they chose to use the station’s new self-administered COVID-19 testing site, run through the city’s Health and Hospitals program, as an alternative to standing on line for hours.
“It was really easy. There was no line,” said 26-year-old Kay-Anne Reed, who had traveled from Detroit to spend the holiday with her brother and family. The whole process took about 15 minutes, from giving the NYC Health and Hospitals worker at the desk her contact information to doing the test herself, which involved sticking a cotton swab up both her nostrils.
Reed is one of the tens of thousands of people who are scrambling to get tested ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Many waited on line for hours last week for a COVID-19 test at either CityMD clinics or at NYC Health and Hospital sites. Some loath to do so paid others to stand on line for them.
As a result, on Tuesday, the city opened up 25 additional testing locations, which will be open through the holiday season, according to Jackie Bray, a member of the city’s COVID-19 response team, who tweeted out a list of the locations.
“New York City: we heard you! More test sites, shorter lines,” she said. “We’ve got 25 new test sites open today in all five boroughs.”
The lines will likely be shorter, at least at first, because it’s unclear how members of the public were expected to find those sites if they missed the social media announcement. The new locations aren’t on the mapping tool the city sends people to find a site closest to them. They’re also not listed on the Health and Hospitals website either.
But those who were able to get tested at the new sites described the experience as quick and easy.
State Senator Brad Hoylman also tweeted about two new locations, including the Penn Station self-administered site. The other was at the Port Authority, where bus passengers and NYC transit workers were seen lining up across from Gate 66 to receive a test.
The testing sites run through Health and Hospitals, as well as CityMD, are all free. But that’s not stopping people from lining up at for-profit clinics that are charging. Rapid Test NYC on Elizabeth Street in Manhattan charges $250 for a rapid test, which promises results in 30 minutes, and $450 for a PCR test, which requires a deeper nasal swab and is considered “the gold standard” of tests, with a 24-hour turnaround time for results.
Father and son duo Hector and Gabriel Troya, who live in New Jersey, specifically came to the Penn Station site because it was free. They waited on line at a clinic in northern New Jersey for 45-minutes two weeks ago and were charged for their visit. Both him and his father tested positive for COVID and were hoping for negative results this time around.
After hearing from a friend who worked in the city about the station’s testing site, they looked into it.
“It did look decent so we decided to try it because we didn’t know any other place to go to,” Gabriel said.
Here are other places to get tested in NYC. Your wait time may vary.