What to Know
- While the city said there is more help coming to New Yorkers in the fight against this latest COVID wave -- things did not kick off as planned.
- The city was supposed to start handing out free at-home COVID test kits at dozens of sites across all five boroughs Wednesday -- but that plan hit a snag, prompting confusion about the handout.
- These at-home test kits are supposed to roll out Wednesday at 57 locations -- including pools, recreation centers and nature preserves.
While the city said there is more help coming to New Yorkers in the fight against this latest COVID wave -- things did not kick off as planned.
The city was supposed to start handing out free at-home COVID test kits at dozens of sites across all five boroughs Wednesday -- but that plan hit a snag, prompting confusion about the handout.
News 4 New York was out in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, at one of the sites that supposedly was set to have the at-home COVID tests, but when we went looking for the testing kits, we couldn't find any.
News 4 New York spoke with employees, and although the COVID bus was there, no one had any information on the kits. Subsequently, 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 around, they didn't have new test kits either.
These at-home test kits are supposed to roll out Wednesday at 57 locations -- including pools, recreation centers and nature preserves. Additional resources, including treatment hotlines, which are working, and a public awareness campaign in English and Spanish were also set to roll out Wednesday.
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Local and state leaders have said it’s important that New Yorkers continue to be aware of symptoms and address them immediately if they feel they could have COVID in order to prevent the spread of the BA.4 and the BA.5 omicron variants, the latter of which now accounts for 65 percent of U.S. cases. The city's positivity rate sits around 15 percent, levels not seen since the winter, but hospitalizations remain low compared to other surges.
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"The symptoms seem to be milder than before but nonetheless people who are unvaccinated are much more likely to be hospitalized and much more likely to die," said Dr. Ayman El-Mohandes, Dean of CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.
New York City has distributed more than 82,000 courses of treatment and more than 35 million at-home tests to schools and organizations. While New York continues to fight COVID, the state health commissioner said the state is not doing that bad.
"We’ve done really well as a state," New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said. "We have over three-quarters of the population vaccinated, but we have further to go. It’s this that in spite of rising numbers of infections related to increasingly contagious variants, the mortality has remained low. That’s a key public health goal, to save lives. and vaccination is clearly the pathway to that."
If New Yorkers go to one of the pool, recreation centers or nature preserves and they cannot find the at-home tests, News 4 was told for them to go to one of the testing trucks to get an in-person nasal swab test.
"If they test positive at home they may not go to work. They may protect people at home. The elderly. Home testing is a convenience that should not by undervalued," said Dr. El-Mohandes.
It is unclear why the city's rollout hit a snag.
