As the City rapidly expands its testing capacity, Mayor de Blasio today announced new self-swab testing at NYC Health + Hospitals testing sites across the five boroughs. Self-swab testing will minimize contact between patients and healthcare workers, allowing the City to test more New Yorkers without putting healthcare workers and patients at further risk. To ensure all confirmed cases are promptly treated, the City will also hire 1,000 contact tracers immediately to help trace, isolate, and support these individuals.
“Defeating this virus begins and ends with our ability to test quickly and safely,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We are working to ensure that every New Yorker who needs a test will get one with speed and efficiency, beginning with those who are most vulnerable and at risk for serious illness.”
Self-Swab Testing
Self-collection will be available at NYC Health + Hospital testing sites by the end of this week. In addition to minimizing contact between patient and healthcare workers, self-swab collection will increase the capacity of existing test sites from the current rate of 15 per hour to up to 20 per hour. Over 5,000 New Yorkers have been tested across the 8 NYC Health + Hospitals testing sites that are currently operational citywide.
Contact Tracers
Jobs have been advertised for people with public health backgrounds to investigate and trace COVID-19 cases and contacts. The City is looking to hire 1,000 people by the end of May with an immediate start date. Details on the scope of work, job requirements, salary, benefits, and how to apply available at: https://fphnyc.org/about/careers/.
Daily Indicators
Admissions for suspected COVID-19 cases at hospitals citywide continue to decline. On April 24, there were only 122 admissions citywide.
The daily number of people in ICUs across NYC Health + Hospitals with suspected cases of COVID-19 continues to decline. Today, 766 people are in H+H ICU’s citywide.
The number of individuals testing positive for the virus at the City’s public health lab increased to 52 percent. The current number of individuals testing positive in private labs is 29 percent.
You can find these metrics here.
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