MCC Daily Tribune

New Testing Initiatives to Improve COVID-19 Detection and Control Across New York

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo recently announced a series of new initiatives related to COVID-19 testing that will improve New York State's ability to detect and control the virus in communities across the state. The initiatives included a pilot program to detect the presence of COVID-19 in wastewater and dispatching mobile testing teams to farms in rural counties across the state.

The Governor also announced that SUNY has been approved by the New York State Department of Health to undertake pooled surveillance testing for COVID-19 - an innovative method where numerous samples can be run as part of one test. SUNY's pooled testing approach was developed and validated by SUNY Upstate Medical University's laboratory, and will use saliva samples, pooled in batches as small as 10 and as large as 25 samples. SUNY Upstate will be able to conduct at least 12,000 more daily tests as a result of this innovative approach.

"As New Yorkers remain vigilant in stopping the spread and our communities cautiously reopen, we continue to aggressively focus on testing in order to detect and control any new coronavirus outbreaks," Governor Cuomo said. "These new testing initiatives, analyzing wastewater for COVID, deploying mobile testing teams to address clusters at farms, and investing in new capacity using pooled testing, will be a critical part of our state's efforts to test, trace and isolate - and defeat the virus."

Read the full media release online.

Rosanna Yule
Government and Community Relations
08/19/2020