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COVID Testing Trucks Come to Rego Park and Kew Gardens Following Spike in Cases

COVID-19 testing (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Sept. 30, 2020

The city is providing free mobile COVID-19 testing in Kew Gardens and Rego Park from today through Friday.

The two neighborhoods have become hotspots for the virus with the Department of Health releasing data Wednesday revealing that 2.64 percent of tests conducted in Rego Park came back positive and 3.31 percent in Kew Gardens.

The mobile testing sites are located at Painter’s Playground and Queens Borough Hall, and are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day until Oct. 2.

The two neighborhoods are among many in Queens and southern Brooklyn that have seen a spike in COVID-19 cases in recent days. Nearby Kew Gardens Hills has a positivity rate of 3.68 percent and Far Rockaway has a rate of 4.91 percent, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.

Kew Gardens, Kew Gardens Hills and Far Rockaway each have been designated coronavirus clusters areas by the city, while health officials are keeping an eye out for Rego Park, an area of increasing concern.

Health officials are ramping up testing to combat the uptick in cases among the cluster areas. In addition to mobile testing, the city has tripled its capacity at Health Department COVID express testing sites.

In designated cluster areas, the city will also shut down streets and sidewalks to house tents for COVID-19 testing; offer self-administered tests at high traffic sites like schools, houses of worship and grocery stores; and deploy rapid testing machines to public hospital sites and local partners in the cluster areas.

The additional measures will be gradually rolled out in the affected neighborhoods, as more sites are added.

“The virus is insidious. Many people are asymptomatic and don’t know they’re infected and can spread the disease,” said Dr. Mitch Katz, CEO of the city’s public hospital system. “Increased testing helps us to identify these people.”

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