Drive-through coronavirus testing sites opened at ProHEALTH Urgent Care in Jericho and at Stony Brook University on Wednesday, a day after the first such site on Long Island debuted at Jones Beach State Park.
ProHEALTH Urgent Care said it saw about 100 cars by noon since starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday and saw even more people at its Little Neck drive-through test site. Jones Beach reportedly saw 500 cars so far. The Stony Brook University mobile testing site features six lanes to accommodate up to 1,000 tests per day and will be open 7 days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
“It’s likely that we’ll look into expanding,” Dr. Zeyad Baker, president and CEO of ProHEALTH Care, told the Press. “We don’t think this is gonna be a matter of weeks.”
The drive-through sites come as the increase in testing capacity resulted in the confirmed cases on Long Island nearly doubling from 228 on Tuesday to 430 as of Wednesday morning. For the same time frame, Nassau cases jumped from 131 to 278 and Suffolk spiked from 97 to 152, although officials noted that the numbers are changing hourly.
Nassau didn’t provide a breakdown of locations, but Suffolk said its cases were broken down as follows: 43 in the Town of Huntington, 33 in the Town of Southold, 23 in the Town of Islip, 20 in the Town of Brookhaven, 17 in the Town of Babylon, three each in the towns of Smithtown and Southampton, and two each in the towns of Riverhead and East Hampton. Six cases have yet to have their addresses confirmed.
Officials warned the public to call ahead if they think they need to get tested.
“People should not have an expectation that they’ll get tested if they just show up,” said Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. “You need to make an appointment.”
For information on how to make an appointment at the drive-through testing site at Jones Beach or in Stony Brook, health officials say to call the New York State Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Hotline at 1-888-364-3065. To make an appointment in Jericho, visit prohealthcare.com
-With Adam Brownstein
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