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Coronavirus testing will be ramped up for the New Yorkers most impacted by the pandemic — low-income minority communities and nursing home residents — according to announcements made Wednesday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Both groups have been disproportionately affected by the virus in New York City, and new antibody data released by the governor Wednesday further underlined the racial disparities.
Of 8,000 people recently tested across the city’s lower-income neighborhoods and communities of color, 27% were positive for COVID-19 antibodies, compared with 19.9% of New York City’s overall population, according to Cuomo.
In Brownsville in Brooklyn and Morrisania in the Bronx, two lower-income pockets of the city, more than 40% of people tested had coronavirus antibodies.
Grave racial disparities have been apparent since the early stages of the pandemic, and the rate of death among black and Latino individuals stands at more than double per 100,000 than that of white and Asian New Yorkers, data from the city’s health department shows.
“You look all across the country, it’s lower-income communities, predominantly minority, where we’re still seeing an increase in the numbers,” the governor said, pointing toward the difficulties of social distancing in high-density public housing developments as part of the problem.
The state will be expanding the number of testing sites at housing developments across New York City, increasing from eight to 40 locations, and will establish 28 additional testing sites at churches and community-based providers in predominantly minority communities.
Personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer, enforced social distancing and expanding public health and education will also be provided in the areas, Cuomo said.
The results of the antibody tests are no surprise and show a failure on the part of officials, according to New York City’s Public Advocate, Jumaane D. Williams.
“Today’s data once again confirms what we already knew, and what I’ve stated repeatedly—New York’s lower-income neighborhoods of more color are epicenters within the epicenter of this crisis,” Williams said in a statement. “This devastating outcome is the result of delayed and inadequate responses by the city, state, and federal government that put New Yorkers with less privilege at greater risk on the front lines without a plan for protection, and perpetuates longstanding systemic failures.”
Infections and fatalities will continue at disproportionate rates “unless we expand and expedite efforts to combat the virus in these communities,” according to Williams. “While I’m glad to see the governor now take additional steps to address these disparities, it does not make up for lost time or lost lives.”
The push toward more testing comes on a day when key coronavirus indicators are “headed in the right direction,” according to Cuomo. “Hospitalizations are down, net change in hospitalizations are down, intubations are down again. Number of new cases down. But it was a long road down.”
Conditions have improved enough that religious gatherings of no more than 10 people and drive-in and parking lot services will be able to resume statewide on Thursday, in accordance with strict social distancing and mask wearing, the governor said.
In total, there have now been 22,976 coronavirus fatalities across the state. On Tuesday alone, 112 people died from the virus, 30 of whom were nursing home residents.
“This crisis has clearly been so tough on the oldest New Yorkers, and it has shown us, once again, we have to redouble our efforts to help those who are most vulnerable,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.
Starting next week, on-site testing will be provided at New York City’s 169 nursing homes.
“As many test kits as the nursing home needs, we will provide,” de Blasio said. “We’re working with a lab to do the processing, so this’ll be a dedicated effort focused on the nursing homes, all 169 of them, and whatever amount of tests they need, whatever amount of lab capacity they need, we will find it for them.”
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If every nursing home tests consistently, they’ll be collectively administering about 3,000 tests a day, according to the mayor.
There have been 1,267 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in New York City’s nursing homes, and another 1,815 fatalities are presumed to be a result of the virus, according to the state’s health department.
The mayor also pledged to fill staffing gaps in facilities resulting from quarantines.
“Anyone who tests positive who works in a nursing home has to stay away for 14 days. You’re going to have staffing shortages. We are committed, the city of New York is committed, to filling those gaps, to making sure there’s enough personnel for every nursing home,” he said.
Almost 250 additional staff members have been put in nursing homes citywide, and by the end of next week, every outstanding staffing request will be fulfilled by the city, according to de Blasio.
Other New York-area coronavirus developments from Wednesday
• Connecticut: Restaurants, stores and malls in Connecticut have reopened with strict guidelines in place including social distancing, increased cleaning and limited capacity.
• Trump: Gov. Andrew Cuomo prompted critics of his handling of coronavirus patients in nursing homes to direct their complaints to the president. The governor said that the directive to nursing homes in March to re-admit residents who had tested positive for the coronavirus was following President Trump’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
