What to Know
- The city has announced universal COVID-19 testing for all New Yorkers, courtesy of the Test & Trace Corps initiative
- The initiative, which launched Monday, will allow New York City to safely care for those who test positive for the virus, and then rapidly track, assess, and quarantine anyone they came into contact with and may have infected
- New York City contact tracers hired to contain the spread of the coronavirus reached out to all of the roughly 600 people who tested positive for the virus citywide on Monday, the first day of the program, and succeeded in reaching more than half of them, officials said Tuesday
The city has announced universal COVID-19 testing for all New Yorkers, courtesy of the Test & Trace Corps initiative.
“Widespread testing holds the key to re-opening our city safely” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “After months of fighting, we are finally able to say that every New Yorker who needs a test will get one. Now with Test & Trace now up and running, we will be able to care for those who test positive and give them the support they need to protect themselves and their loved ones.”
The initiative, which launched Monday, will allow New York City to safely care for those who test positive for the virus, and then rapidly track, assess, and quarantine anyone they came into contact with and may have infected.
“A key step in stopping the spread of COVID-19 is quickly identifying new cases and anyone they’ve been in close contact with across the diversity of our populations—and that’s exactly what Test &Trace Corps intends to do,” the head of the city’s contact tracing program, Dr. Ted Long, said.
Any New Yorker can now get tested at one of the over 150 testing sites citywide. New Yorkers can visit nyc.gov/CovidTest or call 311 to find the sites nearest them.
Additionally, to ensure the Corps can meet the diverse needs of New Yorkers from all backgrounds, 40 distinct languages are spoken by tracers across the Corps.
News
As of Monday, 1,700 contact tracers have been deployed from neighborhoods across the city, with particular emphasis on those hardest hit by the virus, to manage, track, and recall contacts of confirmed COVID-positive cases.
New York City contact tracers hired to contain the spread of the coronavirus reached out to all of the roughly 600 people who tested positive for the virus citywide on Monday, the first day of the program, and succeeded in reaching more than half of them, officials said Tuesday.
“On Day 1 of the program, seeking to reach several hundred people and have what could be an hour conversation with each of them was a tall order,” Long said at a briefing. Long said the fact that the contact tracers actually got through to more than half of the new cases “shows that the system we’re setting up is working.”
The city has hired 1,700 people for its contact tracing effort and needs to reach 2,500 in order to meet Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s target for entering the first phase of the state’s four-step reopening process. The contact tracers are placing people infected with the virus in hotel rooms if they need to isolate themselves away from their families as well as reaching out to the close contacts of those who test positive for COVID-19.
Asked if the protests over the death of George Floyd might spark a new wave of infections, Long encouraged anyone who was at a protest to get tested for the coronavirus at one of the more than 150 free testing sites around the city. Floyd, who was black, died after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes.
“It starts with the testing piece, which is why we’re extending the invitation to anybody that’s been out there at the protests, come in for a free test, it’s close to where you live,” Long said. “We’d love to have you.”
