State set to open COVID-19 testing site in Jamaica
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New Yorkers wait to be tested for COVID-19 outside Elmhurst Hospital. AP Photo/John Minchillo
By David Brand
The state will open a COVID-19 testing site at a medical clinic in Jamaica in order to serve black and Latino communities disproportionately impacted by the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday.
The governor’s announcement did not include a specific location, but a person familiar with negotiations said the state has proposed establishing the testing site at the Queens Health Center on Sutphin Boulevard, a few blocks south of the Sutphin Boulevard subway station and JFK AirTrain hub.
The Jamaica site will be the second non-hospital testing location in Southeast Queens, after a temporary clinic opened in the parking lot of Aqueduct Race Track in South Ozone Park on Monday.
“We are going to increase testing and open new testing sites to collect more data in African-American and Latino communities so we can better understand why this virus kills and has higher fatality rates in certain communities, and what we can do to address it,” Cuomo said.
In addition to Jamaica, the state will open new appointment-only testing sites in the South Bronx and Brownsville, Brooklyn. Black and Latino New Yorkers account for the majority of the population in each community, which also have high rates of poverty.
Demographic data published by the city Wednesday reveals that Black and Latino New Yorkers die from complications of COVID-19 at roughly double the rate of white and Asian residents.
The Queens Health Center — the likely testing site — is located in zip code 11435, where 567 people have tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 8, according to a ProPublic analysis. Black and Latino residents account for the majority of residents in that zip code.
Other zip codes in Southeast Queens and the eastern portion of the Rockaway Peninsula have remained among the places with the most COVID-19 cases in the city, according to data published April 1 and analyzed by The New York Times. Zip code 11691, which includes Far Rockaway, had 436 cases as of April — the 11th highest caseload of any zip code in the city, according to the data. Zip code 11432 in Jamaica had 405 cases, the 15th highest total in the city.
Southeast Queens leaders have called on the city and state to add testing sites in the region, which is served by just three over-burdened hospitals: Jamaica Hospital, St. John’s Episcopal and Queens Hospital Center.
“People are dying out here and we don’t have time to waste,” said Jamaica Councilmember Adrienne Adams last month.
On a phone call with reporters in March, Councilmember Donovan Richards had recommended adding testing sites to Roy Wilkins Park, a large parking lot at York College, and the empty beachfront expanse from Beach 32nd Street to Beach 56th Street.
