New York governor on Saturday said that he would sign an executive order so that 5000 pharmacies can carry out diagnostic coronavirus tests.
He also said that there are plans to expand testing to 40000 people per day as well as expand the criteria for someone to receive a diagnostic test.
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“We are expanding our diagnostic testing criteria so that first responders, frontline healthcare workers and essential workers can all be tested. They are our heroes who are risking their health to get us through this crisis. They deserve priority for testing,” he added.
“We know that testing is a key component of re-opening the economy and getting to a new normal, and New York State is already doing more tests per capita than any state or country. We’ve been working with the federal government to increase the capacity of labs that process these diagnostic tests, and now we need more collection sites so we continue to ramp up our testing across the state,” said Cuomo.
He also said that anti-body testing for the frontline health workers had already started at four hospitals in New York.
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Transit workers and police personnel will also receive anti-body testing next week, he added.
The death toll due to COVID-19 in the US surged to 53934 on Sunday, according to John Hopkins University tally.
The number of coronavirus cases also increased to 939235 on Sunday.