What you should know
- Although New York City said there is more help for New Yorkers in the fight against this latest wave of COVID, things did not start as planned.
- The city was supposed to start handing out free COVID home test kits at dozens of sites across the five boroughs on Wednesday, but that plan fell through, leading to confusion.
- These home testing kits were supposed to roll out Wednesday at 57 locations, including swimming pools, recreation centers and nature reserves.
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NEW YORK — Although New York City said there is more help for New Yorkers in the fight against this latest wave of COVID, things didn’t start as planned.
The city was supposed to start handing out free COVID home test kits at dozens of sites across the five boroughs on Wednesday, but that plan fell through, leading to confusion.
Our sister network News 4 New York was in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, at one of the sites that was supposed to have at-home COVID testing, but when we looked for test kits, we couldn’t find any.
News 4 New York spoke to employees, and although the COVID PCR testing bus was there, no one had any information about the home test kits. Later, after calling 311, News 4 New York was told that Sunset Park would not have the test kits, however, Red Hook would. When News 4 went to Red Hook and asked, they didn’t have the kits either.
These at-home testing kits were supposed to roll out Wednesday at 57 locations, including swimming pools, recreation centers and nature preserves. Additional resources were also launched Wednesday, including treatment hotlines, which are up and running, and a public awareness campaign in English and Spanish.
State and local leaders have said it’s important for New Yorkers to remain aware of symptoms and address them immediately if they feel they might have COVID to prevent the spread of the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variants.
New York City has distributed more than 82,000 treatment courses and more than 35 million home tests to schools and organizations. As New York continues to battle COVID, the state health commissioner said the state isn’t doing too badly.
“We’ve done very well as a state,” said Dr. Mary Bassett, New York State health commissioner. “We have more than three-quarters of the population vaccinated, but we have more to go. It is that, despite the increase in infections related to increasingly contagious variants, mortality has remained low. That is a key objective public health, saving lives and vaccination is clearly the path to that.
If New Yorkers go to one of the pools, recreation centers, or nature preserves and cannot find the tests at home, they are encouraged to go to one of the PCR test trucks to take a nasal swab test in person.
It is not clear why the launch of the city had problems.
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