NYC To Produce Coronavirus Tests By Tens Of Thousands, Mayor Says

NEW YORK CITY — New York City will start making its own new coronavirus tests, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.

Local commercial labs, academic institutions and manufacturers will work with New York City's Economic Development Corporation to make the intricate COVID-19 tests, which have been in increasingly short supply, de Blasio said.

"A lot of folks would have said this is impossible," de Blasio said. "They're making it possible, and that's what New Yorkers do."

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New York City will be able to manufacture up to 50,000 test kits per week beginning in early May, de Blasio estimated.

Commercial and academic labs will produce the testing fluids, while manufacturers and 3D printers will make testing swabs and tubes, the mayor said.

De Blasio declined to name any of the companies or institutions involved in the effort.

With additional supplies donated by Aria Diagnostics, New York City will have a guaranteed 400,000 test kits supplied per month, de Blasio said.

Boosting New York City production comes with an added benefit of bringing a fleet of local manufacturers back to work, said James Patchett, president and CEO of New York City's Economic Development Corporation.

"The great thing is that a lot of these people were out of work," Patchett said. "Now they've got well-paying jobs."

But the plan also relies on the ability to find lab capacity to process the tests and medical personnel to administer them, two challenges that remained unsolved as of Tuesday, de Blasio admitted.

"We're going to need personnel to administer the test," de Blasio said. "We're going to need the PPE to protect the personnel."

New York businesses can email TestHelp@edc.nyc to inquire about joining the initiative.

The two COVID-19 tests — polymerise chain reaction and antibody — show whether a patient currently has the virus or has already fought it, respectively. De Blasio did not clarify which the city would produce.

De Blasio last week released a basic exit strategy to return New Yorkers to city streets that relied predominantly on mass, widespread testing.

New York City cannot transition to the second phase until three criteria — COVID-19 hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions and positive tests — show continuous progress.

But on Monday, new ICU admissions rose from 835 to 850, de Blasio said, and the percentage of positive test results rose more than a point to 59.6 percent.

Thus, for the time being, New Yorkers deemed more vulnerable to COVID-19 will be prioritized to receive testing, according to the mayor.

Added Dr. Oxiris Barbot, "It's premature to think about every single New Yorker being tested."

As of 1 p.m. Monday, 106,813 New Yorkers had tested positive, 29,335 were hospitalized with COVID-19 and 7,349 had died, New York data showed.

"We're dealing with imperfect knowledge of the disease and limited tools to fight it," de Blasio said. "Starting to produce testing kits here in New York City is going to help us save lives."

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