What to Know
- New Jersey's largest city announced it is launching a program to offer mass COVID-19 testing to its entire homeless population -- the program is the first of its kind in the state
- The testing began Monday at an airport hotel with which the city partnered last month as part of Mayor Ras Baraka’s $1 million investment in rapid, short-term housing for Newark’s most vulnerable residents during the COVID-19 health crisis
- Additionally, there will be testing at the largest Newark homeless shelter. Eventually, residents at all 21 shelters will be offered tests
New Jersey's largest city announced it is launching a program to offer mass COVID-19 testing to its entire homeless population -- the program is the first of its kind in the state.
The testing began Monday at an airport hotel with which the city partnered last month as part of Mayor Ras Baraka’s $1 million investment in rapid, short-term housing for Newark’s most vulnerable residents during the COVID-19 health crisis. The initiative was designed to get residents without shelter to a safe place in order to help mitigate and slow the person-to-person spread of the virus.
In total, 194 residents will be offered tests Monday at the hotel.
“This was a critical part of our strategy,” Baraka said. “We had to get our residents without addresses off the street and inside for their own safety and the safety of others. We were able to encourage many of them to come indoors, and today we start testing those who have so far been asymptomatic, to gather more data about how this disease has spread.”
However, later on in the week, there will be testing at the largest Newark homeless shelter. Eventually, residents at all 21 shelters will be offered tests.
According to the city, anyone who tested positive will be quarantined for 14 days under medical supervision, unless they need to be hospitalized, and then returned to their original shelters.
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The city’s Contact Tracing Task Force will handle any new positive cases from the homeless testing, to try to follow trace where they have been and with whom they have had contact. The task force will begin its expanded work Tuesday with hopes of tracing about 500 cases a day.
“This is what we need to truly understand this disease, how it is spread and what we must continue to do to stop it,” Baraka. “Contract tracing is one of the most important weapons we have.”
The testing will be done by the City’s Department of Health and Community Wellness Mary Eliza Mahoney Federally Qualified Health Center. The city estimates there are about 2,200 homeless individuals in Newark, of which more than 1,800 are being sheltered daily under the mayor's program.
“I think we have collectively been successful in helping these residents without addresses to understand the gravity of the COVID-19 crisis and are getting them to safety, which is not always an easy thing to do,” Dr. Mark Wade, director of the city's Department of Health and Community Wellness, said. “This has been a novel, life-saving approach and I don’t know of another major city in the country that has done this.”
According to Wade, the city will utilize a new, quicker and less intrusive anterior nasal swabbing method that will be more comfortable for those undergoing the testing. This swabbing method is also safer for the medical staff.
Every staff member at all shelter will also be tested.
To date, New Jersey has reported 128,269 COVID-19 cases, 14,621 of those cases come from Essex County, where Newark is found. The death toll statewide stands at 7,910.
