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May 8, 2020

Finally, there’s COVID testing — but few takers

PHOTO | New Haven BIZ On Wednesday afternoon there was little for workers (under tent at right) to do at the city-run Day Street Park COVID test site.
By Michael C. Bingham

In the waning days of March and early April, as the coronavirus pandemic seized Connecticut and the world, local and state government officials scrambled to ramp up COVID-19 testing to screen citizens for the virus and get those who tested positive into treatment as quickly and efficiently as humanly possible.

Now, a month later some municipalities, notably New Haven, face a very different circumstance, excess COVID testing capacity. The city’s five testing sites, which came online from early April through April 28, have seen the numbers of those being tested slow to a trickle.

That would sound like the proverbial good problem to have, but it’s not. It means many who would like to be tested either don’t know that a simple, quick and potentially no-cost COVID test is available to them, or they believe they need a physician’s referral or to exhibit coronavirus symptoms to get a test in New Haven.

In truth, they need neither. At most, they need to schedule an appointment, which can be done online at coronatestct.com or by calling the city’s Department of Public Health at 203-946-4949. The city will even provide no-cost transportation to testing sites for those without a car, and there is no fee for the test for those who don’t have health insurance.

At midday Friday, there were no cars in line to register at the Yale New Haven Health-operated test site on Sargent Drive.

On Thursday New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker and city Public Health Director Maritza Bond acknowledged that the number of COVID tests being performed was significantly below capacity.

“Previously all we were saying is that if you’re symptomatic, get tested,” Elicker said during a media briefing Thursday. “I don’t want anyone to think we’ve reached our capacity as far as testing goes.”

Elicker and Bond asked for the media’s cooperation in getting the word out that previously formidable barriers to testing are mostly gone, and that citizens should avail themselves of the opportunity to quickly and easily learn if they might be infected — and to seek treatment if they are.

Five sites, no waiting

On April 28 the city’s Department of Public Health opened a new walk-in coronavirus testing site at 1319 Chapel Street, two blocks from the St. Raphael campus of Yale New Haven.

The opening was hailed as a positive step in making testing more widely available and accessible. The Chapel Street location was the city’s fifth testing site, the third to welcome walk-ups, a key consideration for Elicker. The city’s two largest testing sites, operated by Yale New Haven Health and CVS, are on Sargent Drive and not easily accessed by pedestrians.

The other two testing sites are the Fair Haven Community Health Center on Grand Avenue and the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center on Dixwell Avenue.

The Yale New Haven test site requires a referral from a health-care provider; the CVS site a quarter-mile to the west on Sargent Drive tests those exhibiting COVID symptoms. Both require advance appointments, although on Thursday afternoon neither had any vehicles waiting in line.

The Chapel Street facility is a temporary outdoor facility set up on a basketball court in Day Street Park (at the intersection of Chapel and Day). It is underwritten and managed by Greenwich physician Steven Murphy in cooperation with the city’s Public Health Department.

On Wednesday morning few people showed up for tests, and one who did show up with no appointment was registered, tested with a nasal swab and bade farewell within a span of about five minutes.

For much of the rest of the morning the five workers at the site sat idle. Ahmad Altajar, clinical director of the site, said the number of test-takers to the site was “not as many as we’d like.”

Later, Public Health Director Bond said the Chapel Street site was performing between 20 and 25 tests per day over its first eight days in operation. She noted that on Tuesday Elicker had recorded a robo-call for distribution to residents within a mile radius of Day Street Park to let them know walk-up testing was available.

The mayor acknowledged it was a challenge to manage the transition “from testing symptomatic to asymptomatic people, and there will be some growing pains” while the process of getting the word out to the target audience continues.

“We do recognize that we need to market all of the sites, as they’re not testing at their capacity,” Bond said.

Cumulatively the five sites have performed 6,845 COVID tests since testing began five weeks ago. Of the electronic lab records for those tests, 32% show positive results, Bond said.

“The need is there,” Elicker said. The Chapel Street testing site is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. Visit coronatestct.com or call the city’s Department of Public Health at 203-946-4949.

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