New Yorkers are flocking to COVID-19 testing sites across the five boroughs, amid growing signs of a second wave, and in preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday that's now just two weeks away. In many cases, they're encountering longer lines than they've seen in months.
"We’ve been here over two hours, so I’m pretty angry," said Amy Lee, a 27-year-old nurse in Manhattan, as she inched closer to the door of the CityMD on Delancey Street. Lee said she'd tried a different walk-in clinic earlier in the morning, but found the line was twice as long.
According to state data, over 68,000 New York City residents were tested for coronavirus on Wednesday — over a 12 percent increase from the same day last week, and among the highest totals since the pandemic struck.
The jump in tests has come as case rates have continued to climb, prompting Governor Andrew Cuomo to issue new restrictions on bars, restaurants, gyms and private gatherings this week. Mayor Bill de Blasio, who's repeatedly warned that New York has "one last chance" to fight back a second wave, urged city residents to get tested once again on Thursday.
At Northwell Health, the state's largest healthcare provider, appointments across the city were booked up for the day by early Thursday morning. "Right now they're swamped," a company rep told Gothamist. "It's because of what's being reported about coronavirus."
New Yorkers waited more than two hours for a COVID test at the Delancey Street CityMD on Thursday
A man outside CityMD who gave his name as Adam said he'd called around to several testing sites, but couldn't get anyone on the phone. "For a city this big, as vulnerable as it is, you'd think there would be a better system," he said. He planned to quarantine for two weeks after receiving his result, so he could see his family for Thanksgiving.
At Gouverneur Hospital, an NYC Health & Hospital site on the Lower East Side, wait times extended a little over an hour on Thursday afternoon. Meena Ysanne, a 48-year-old musician who said she gets tested on a weekly basis, described the wait as "definitely longer than normal," which she attributed to more New Yorkers seeking tests during the lunch rush.
Other New Yorkers reported painless experiences at public hospital locations that allow for appointments to be scheduled in advance — though landing one of those coveted slots seemed to require a bit of patience.
Dr. Denis Nash, an epidemiologist at CUNY, said he worried that the influx of people seeking tests could extend the amount of time it takes to receive a result, particularly around the holidays. When turnaround times spiked this summer, commercial labs managed to reduce the backups through "pooled" testing — a strategy that involves testing multiple samples at once, which becomes less effective as the prevalence of infections rises, Nash noted.
According to the city's most recent data, two-thirds of those tested were receiving a diagnosis within 48 hours. CityMD pegged the wait time for non-rapid tests at roughly three and four days.
"New York City is certainly a leader in the country on this, but I had really hoped that by this point we’d have better access to rapid testing, including at home tests," said Nash. "I don’t think our city, or a lot of other jurisdictions across the country, have been thinking creatively about ways to do testing in the middle of the pandemic."
On Thursday, the city announced plans to send at-home test kits to confirmed COVID patients and their contacts; but the kits remain out of reach for most of the population, and it's unclear how many at-home tests health officials can currently distribute.
After celebrating in the streets following Trump's loss on Saturday, Sophie Ellman-Golan, a Manhattan resident and community organizer, said she tried to get a COVID test on Wednesday, only to find herself in a CityMD line for the better part of four hours.
She passed the time with other line-waiters, who took turns getting coffee, and holding each others spot as they used the bathroom. The experience, she said, left her worried that problems with testing capacity still hadn't been remedied as the city entered another wave of the virus.
"Nine months in, it makes no sense that this is the best that’s been developed," Ellman-Golman said. "It feels like a total abdication of responsibility from city, state and federal government. How many people don't have four hours to wait to get a test who need one?"
UPDATE: Beginning on Monday, CityMD will adjust operating hours to close all locations 90 minutes earlier. The change comes in response to growing patient volumes at the facilities, which have forced staff to stay late on a regular basis, according to an email sent by the urgent care center on Friday.
"As you may have noticed, long lines are a daily fact at nearly every CityMD as we see a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases across the region," the email reads. "Our site staff and doctors have been seeing patients well beyond normal closing time for months now and we’ve reached the point where they are sacrificing their own safety and health."
Those in line when the facility closes will still receive care, barring "extreme cases," according to the email.
