New York City continues to increase coronavirus testing and is preparing for its test and trace program. Mayor Bill de Blasio says more testing sites are coming online with the hopes the city will be able to do 50-thousand tests a day by August.
“Testing is what gives us the ability to know what’s going on person by person and in the whole city. And now we’re are going to have something on a vast scale we didn’t have before which is tracing.”
The city has hired 17 hundred contact tracers. Ted Long Is in charge of tracing. He says tracers will interview people who test positive.
“We’ll go over close contact, intimate partners, people they live with or people they have been within six feet of.”
Mayor de Blasio is dismissing talk that residents will want to flee to the suburbs with New York City getting hit so hard with coronavirus. The mayor points to the resiliency following 9-11, the financial crisis, and superstorm sandy, saying New York City will be strong again following the pandemic.
“Some people may chose to leave and I believe a lot of people will chose to come in. I think the vast majority of people here believe in this place. And there will be a vaccine one day.”
Meanwhile, the mayor says there were few problems on Memorial Day weekend and coronaivurs data still points to the start of reopening soon.
“I feel very good about the trajectory. I feel very good we will get there in the first two weeks of June.”