A drive-thru mobile testing center for COVID-19 opened March 13 at the county”™s Glen Island Park in New Rochelle. The facility is the first of its kind in the state and is available for use by all Westchester residents who call a special phone number and make an appointment. Priority will be given to residents of New Rochelle since that city has been at the epicenter of Westchester”™s collection of COVID cases.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, speaking at the opening of the drive-thru center, said the phone number to call for test appointments is: 888-364-3065. He said that people call, make an appointment, drive in and get tested while still in the car.
“You don”™t expose anyone else. You go back home and they call you with the results,” Cuomo said.
Only a few hours later, back in Albany, Cuomo announced at a news conference that the federal government had reversed its position and decided to allow the states to handle testing for the coronavirus if they choose to do so. Cuomo had previously been critical of the Trump Administration for wanting to control testing even though its testing program has been largely inefficient and ineffective. Cuomo had previously repeatedly slammed the administration for not allowing New York state to control testing since the state”™s health department routinely works with and licenses testing laboratories, at least one of which has the capacity for doing several thousand automated COVID tests each day.
Cuomo said that after talking with Vice President Pence on previous occasions and getting his pledges to look into the situation but no action, he talked with both Pence and President Trump on March 13 and got their approval for New York to handle its own COVID-19 testing.
“You don”™t expose anyone else. You go back home and they call you with the results,” Cuomo said.
Among those appearing with Cuomo at the opening of the drive-thru center was Michael Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell Health. Northwell operates health care facilities in the Hudson Valley including Phelps Hospital in Sleepy Hollow, which Monday reported having a patient with COVID-19. Northwell operates a large testing laboratory on Long Island.
Also on hand was Jon Cohen, executive chairman of the testing company BioReference. That company will be running approximately 5,000 COVID tests per day for the state in addition to the tests it handles from the drive-thru center.
“This is a time for unity, not division,” Dowling said. “This is a time for us to think of community. We are going through a lot of inconvenience, but this is an issue that will be beaten.”
Cuomo explained that there are six lanes available for cars at the drive-thru testing center. He said people should expect to spend about 15 minutes there. He said that a driver drives in, people remain in the vehicles and technicians use swabs to take mucus samples from the nose and back of the throat. The swabs then are packaged for transport to a laboratory.
“This facility can do about 200 cars per day, so depending on how many people who were in the car, that”™s how many people you will serve,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo said that a special focus will be on especially vulnerable populations including the elderly, people with underlying diseases and those with compromised immune systems.
“This facility is new and different. I understand that. But our job is to find new ways to respond to the situation,” Cuomo said. “Many people will be exposed to this virus. Many people have already been exposed to this virus, didn”™t know it and have what they call self-resolved. They may have had mild symptoms. 80% of the people will self-resolve.”
Cuomo said that the drive-thru testing facility at Glen Island Park would remain in place as long as necessary.
“This will not be over in 30 days. It will not be over in a matter of weeks,” Cuomo said. He raised the possibility that the current COVID situation could last six or eight months.
When asked about that statement by a reporter at the afternoon news conference in Albany, Cuomo deferred to the state”™s Health Commissioner Howard Zucker who said that such a timeline was thought to be possible based on the timelines of previous pandemics and what had been said by experts overseas regarding COVID-19.
