The first day of coronavirus screening at Bethany Baptist Church, a historical Black parish in Brooklyn, New York, got off to a slow start. About 130 individuals appeared Wednesday for diagnostic tests at the temporary screening website, according to Rev. Adolphus C. Lacey.
However by the next day, a socially distanced line extended down the block outside the church half an hour before the site opened, Lacey stated. More than 400 people signed up for antibody testing on Thursday, he stated.
” We are overloaded,” Lacey, the church’s senior pastor, told HuffPost.
Lacey presumed that visits would schedule up quickly until Sunday, when Bethany’s testing site is set up to close. That’s precisely what he had hoped for, the pastor said.
” We’re demonstrating a requirement,” Lacey said.
Bethany Baptist is among11 short-term COVID-19 testing sites that opened at New york city churches today as part of a collaboration between the state’s department of health and its biggest health care network, Northwell Health. An additional 13 church testing sites will open next week, according to WABC-TV in New York City City.
The screening websites are in mainly minority areas in Queens, the Bronx, Westchester and other parts of the New york city City city area.
The effort seeks to increase access to COVID-19 testing in low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of co