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New York State to start scaling back drive-thru COVID testing on Friday

Griffiss International Airport in Rome is among the upstate New York airports awarded federal funding for projects, the office of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) said. (Photo credit: zoeyadvertising.com)

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday announced the state would start demobilizing its state-run drive-thru COVID-19 testing sites across New York beginning Friday.

The governor said these testing-site closures follow historically low positivity rates and an 88 percent drop in drive-thru testing demand in the last several months. “As New York State rapidly approaches the goal of a 70 percent vaccination rate, and with the abundance of various testing options in all areas of the state, the dependence on drive-through testing has dramatically decreased,” the governor’s office said in a release.

The state’s drive-thru testing sites have conducted 1.6 million COVID-19 tests since the pandemic started. That’s out of more than 57 million total virus tests done in New York in that time.

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The scaling back of testing will allow the state to focus its resources on getting more New Yorkers vaccinated, Cuomo noted.

Demobilization will begin Friday with the state-run drive-thru testing site at Griffiss International Airport in Rome, as well as test sites in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Nassau County, and Staten Island

Cuomo also reported the following daily coronavirus data on Thursday:

Test Results Reported – 139,492
Total Positive – 566
Percent Positive – 0.41%
7-Day Average Percent Positive – 0.47%
Patient Hospitalization – 758 (-19)
Patients Newly Admitted – 105
Patients in ICU – 190 (-5)
Patients in ICU with Intubation – 113 (-7)
Total Discharges – 183,346 (+96)
Deaths – 9
Total Deaths – 42,833
Total vaccine doses administered – 19,820,785
Total vaccine doses administered over past 24 hours – 104,488
Total vaccine doses administered over past 7 days – 594,115
Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose – 66.9%
Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series – 59.3%
Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) – 69.2%
Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series (CDC) – 60.3%
Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose – 55.2%
Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series – 48.2%
Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) – 57.2%
Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series (CDC) – 48.9%