Mapping COVID in Queens: Testing expands but gaps remain in former crisis ‘epicenter’
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Hundreds of people visited a COVID-19 testing tent outside Elmhurst Hospital each day in late March and April. At the time, it was one of very few testing sites in all of Queens. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
Maps by Renee King and Naomi Tinga of Measure of America
Story by David Brand
This story and COVID-19 testing maps were created in partnership with the nonprofit organization Measure of America.
For weeks, Dr. Edward Williams implored leaders in and around the Rockaways to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously.
Widespread testing, administered early and often, would spare vulnerable New Yorkers from the deadly illness, said Williams, the president of Ready Rockaway, an organization that prepares for catastrophes man-made and natural. Residents of the eastern portion of the peninsula, especially the low-income Black and Latino communities of Far Rockaway and Edgemere, were particularly vulnerable to the illness because people there have a higher-than-average rate of pre-existing health conditions, he said.
In May, Williams’ own 77-year-old sister, Edna Bradshaw, was hospitalized for COVID-19. She died two weeks later.
“No one was able to see her. She died alone,” Williams said. “I was not able to see my sister. I wasn’t able to talk to my sister and then I wasn’t able to go to her funeral because of my own underlying conditions.”
At the time of Bradshaw’s death, the Rockaway Peninsula had just two COVID-19 testing sites: St. John’s Episcopal Hospital and a two-day-a-week clinic at the Joseph P. Addabbo Family Health Center, which began offering tests on April 14. The region did not receive a daily, non-hospital testing site until May 26, the Forest Hills Post reported at the time.
Today, there are at least five testing sites in and around Far Rockaway, one of several Queens communities where testing capacity has grown over the four months of the pandemic.
An analysis by the Eagle and the nonprofit organization Measure of America identified at least 76 testing sites across Queens as of July 1, with a clear expansion of testing in certain neighborhoods devastated by COVID-19. At least 34 of the sites provide antibody testing, as well.
Despite these gains, glaring gaps persist.
There is just one testing site in East Elmhurst’s zip code 11369, which has for months had the city’s highest positive COVID-19 rate per 100,000 residents, according to city data.
Zip code 11354 in Flushing, home to the city’s third highest death rate, has just two testing locations.
There are no testing sites in a huge chunk of Northeast Queens, including Douglaston and Bellerose’s zip code 11004, which has a higher-than-average COVID-19 death rate. There are just two testing sites in a large swath of central and eastern Queens, from Kew Gardens to Bayside. And there are few testing sites outside Jamaica in Southeast Queens.
The maps created by Measure of America plot testing site locations with individual neighborhoods shaded to correspond with their death and illness rates. Darker hues indicate higher rates — especially evident in the Elmhurst-Jackson-Heights-Corona area, parts of northern Flushing and the Far Rockaway region.
COVID-19 testing sites in Queens and neighborhood-level death rates, as of July 2:
The test site locations generally correspond with sites compiled by the corporation Castlight and featured on the city’s online COVID-19 portal. The Castlight map, which relies on community input, plots testing sites using Google Maps, but does not include zip code-level death and illness rates.
While thorough, the Eagle/Measure of America maps are not definitive guides.
That’s because COVID-19 and antibody testing locations change by the week. For example, the city opened an antibody testing site at Queens High School of Teaching in Glen Oaks through a partnership with BioReference labs on June 30. Others, like those located at some churches, have closed, with little media attention.
Privately run facilities do not require approval from the city’s Department of Health to start COVID testing, a city Health Department spokesperson said. That means many sites have not yet been compiled in one single source.
The Eagle and Measure of America will continue to add testing sites to our maps as we learn about them.
If you are aware of testing facilities that we did not include in our dataset, please submit information using the form at the end of this article. We will be updating the maps and our data set during the coming months.
Testing capacity grows, with glaring gaps
Four months ago, the lethal impact of the coronavirus exposed a lack of COVID-19 testing in New York City, with Queens emerging as one of the world’s hardest hit places.
Until late-March, the borough’s eight over-burdened hospitals remained the only testing sites in all of Queens, home to more than 2.3 million people.
By March 20, just three other testing locations had opened in Queens: a temporary drive-through clinic in the Aqueduct Race Track parking lot, a site outside Queens Hospital-Jamaica and a blue tent on the grounds of Elmhurst Hospital, which quickly attracted hundreds of patients each day.
Over the next week, Elmhurst Hospital became a symbol of the public health crisis, referred to as the “epicenter within the epicenter” of the global pandemic by Mayor Bill de Blasio. Elmhurst was the first local hospital stretched to capacity and beyond as residents, particularly low-income Black and Latino New Yorkers, sought emergency treatment for the terrifying new illness.
Other Queens hospitals soon saw surges of their own. “We are flooded with patients,” an emergency room physician at Jamaica Hospital said on March 27. St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway was already “overwhelmed” and searching for ventilators by March 31, according to Councilmember Donovan Richards and a hospital spokesperson.
The Elmhurst Hospital testing tent, which opened March 20, quickly saw hundreds of visitors a day as Queens emerged as the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis. Eagle file photo by Rachel Vick
As the death toll mounted, residents along the Rockaway Peninsula waited for testing capacity to expand. Today, there are five testing sites in the Far Rockaway area, where COVID-19 kills more residents than nearly every other section of New York City.
Zip code 11691, which covers Edgemere and Far Rockaway has the city’s second highest death rate at 561 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to city data. Two other Rockaway zip codes, 11692 and 11694, also account for two of the city’s ten highest death rates due to COVID-19.
“We knew before the data came out that we would be one of most disproportionately affected communities because of the preexisting socioeconomic conditions that lead to poor health outcomes,” said Rockaway Youth Task Force Executive Director Milan Taylor.
Residents of the Rockaways experience diabetes, heart disease and hypertension at a higher rate than the citywide average, according to Health Department data.
“From day one, we knew our communities would be hardest hit,” Taylor said.
But testing was slow to arrive and people did not know whether they were contagious, he said.
The Joseph Addabbo Medical Center began offering tests two days a week on April 14. Far Rockaway did not get a fixed testing site until May 26, the Forest Hills Post reported at the time.
Taylor said that Williams, the head of Ready Rockaway, led local community groups in pushing elected officials to take action. Williams said those efforts influenced elected officials.
“It was my organization and a collection of others that put the pressure on the powers that be to make sure there were testing sites here in the Rockaways,” Williams said. “As we saw the influx and increase of this devastation of our population, we realized and recognized that we didn’t have enough sites so we publicly voiced our disdain.”
Early state and city inaction contributed to the “murder” of his sister and other Rockaway residents, Williams said.
“The thing that is so upsetting about it is, like everyone else’s story, it was too little too late,” Williams said. “This is an atrocity. I’m just one family and can you imagine how many families in the Rockaways have experienced the same thing.”
Richards, the local councilmember, was one of the elected officials who took up the mission. He urged the city to establish testing sites in Southeast Queens and the Rockaways, and even yelled at de Blasio to speed up development, according to multiple people familiar with the conversation.
The testing tent outside elmhurst hospital on march 30. Eagle file photo by Rachel vick
Non-hospital testing was also slow to come to the Corona, Elmhurst and the Jackson Heights area, despite the region’s designation as the “epicenter” of the COVID-19 crisis.
Today, there are testing nine locations in those neighborhoods, according to the Eagle/Measure of America analysis.
State Sen. Jessica Ramos said more test sites are needed to truly serve the community. Her district office is located in the zip code 11369, home to the city’s highest positive case rate per 100,000 people but just a single testing site.
“We are seeing more of a line at Elmhurst Hospital for COVID testing again,” Ramos said. “And we need to be extra careful during the summer that we don’t set off a second wave.”
Ramos reviewed the maps compiled by Measure of America and said she would use the information to advocate for more testing locations in her district, and other communities without adequate testing.
“Especially in East Elmhurst and Corona, where rates have been highest, but also northern Astoria and Woodside,” she said. “I will be writing to the governor and mayor with this report to advocate for increased testing.”
Private and public engagement
By 9:15 a.m. on July 6, six people stood in the shadow cast by P.S 81 Jean Paul Richter in Ridgewood as they awaited a test inside a new clinic at 17-16 Bleecker Street, one of several sites run by the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation. A security guard directing visitors said more than 140 people had visited during his most recent shift July 2.
As the city has stepped up testing, so have private companies. CityMD began offering no-cost COVID tests in May through an agreement with the city. There are 13 CityMD sites in Queens.
Other companies, like One Medical, with a site in the York College Parking Lot, and UMD Urgent Care, with locations in Astoria and Jamaica, also offer tests.
People wait outside a testing site at 17-16 Bleecker street in ridgewood on july 6. Eagle photo by david brand
All clinical laboratory testing in New York state and all clinical laboratory testing of New York State residents is regulated by the state’s Clinical Laboratory Evaluation Program, a city Health Department spokesperson said.
A pilot program unveiled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in late May engages private pharmacists in the fight against COVID-19, as well. About 50 pharmacies statewide, including seven in Queens, began offering tests in early June. Pharmacists Society of the State of New York President Steve Moore said he hoped a majority of independent pharmacists could one day administer COVID-19 tests.
A lot of testing models are drive-through or drive-in testing and that doesn’t apply for New York City,” he said. “We want to involve community pharmacists that are part of those communities.
“Hopefully, a vast majority of independent pharmacies can participate,” he added.
For Williams, the Rockaway Ready director who lost his sister to COVID-19, the effort to expand testing must continue, even as the illness rate decreases in New York City.
“I made a solemn promise to her son and my nephew and daughter that I would not let her death go in vain,” Williams said. “I will continue my pursuit to expose inequities and deficiencies and lack of response from powers that be that have had a significant role in the disparities we see particularly in our communities.”
