Coronavirus Response: New York City To Produce Its Own Testing Kits

The shortage of testing kits has been of the primary issues in the fight against COVID-19. New York City, one of the epicenters of the pandemic in the U.S., is taking a major step towards solving this issue for itself.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday that the city would be manufacturing tests on its own, utilizing its own facilities and working with another based in Carmel, Indiana. These tests will begin production in May, with the city-based facilities – including labs, factories, and 3D printing firms – producing 50,000 tests per week.

“We have scoured the world looking for test kits on the open market,” de Blasio explained. It’s been extraordinarily frustrating. We’ve had so many good people searching everywhere just to buy the test kits to get a reliable supply. It has not been possible.”

Aria Diagnostics in Carmel, meanwhile, will begin selling a further 50,000 to the city each week starting on Monday. It had already donated 50,000 kits to New York last week.

“I’m sure New Yorkers wouldn’t have thought the cavalry would come from Carmel, Indiana, but it has,” de Blasio said.

The number of tests conducted by the city has fluctuated wildly in recent weeks. On April 6, it tested a staggering 10,241 patients in one day, the most since the virus broke out there. Only a few days later on April 10, a mere 25 tests were administered, painting a grim picture of the major city’s access to vital materials.

Johns Hopkins University reports that New York City has seen over 110,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus so far, the most by far of any region in New York state, which itself has the most cases of any state in the U.S.