Governor Andrew Cuomo’s announcement of two additional COVD-19 test sites in Westchester County is good news for the residents of Mt. Vernon and Yonkers, where both new sites will be located, but also points to the numbers of cases in both of Westchester’s largest cities that required the new testing facilities.
The new testing sites are located at 2 Park Avenue in Yonkers, at St. John’s Riverside Hospital’s Parkside Pavilion, and in Mt. Vernon at the Mount Vernon Neighborhood Health Center, at 107 West 4th Street. The Yonkers site will provide testing by appointment only, and for residents who live in the 10701-zip code of Yonkers. The test will be conducted by Hudson River Healthcare
There are now 4 COVID-19 test sites in Westchester, at the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla and at Glen Island Park in New Rochelle, both drive-in facilities. Both new testing sites will provide the opportunity for residents to walk up and get tested. The Mount Vernon testing site will operate weekdays between 9am-5pm and is also available by appointment only. Both sites opened on April 17.
“Thank you to Governor Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and the New York State Department of Health for recognizing the urgent need for increased testing in Yonkers,” said Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano. “Yonkers has the most cases in Westchester County, particularly in our most densely populated neighborhoods. Our hope is as we increase testing, Yonkers can improve its efforts to decrease the rate of infection in our hot spots and continue on our path to recovery.”
Mayor Spano added, “The majority of our Yonkers’ cases reside in Southwest Yonkers where many have had an inability to access a coronavirus test. I ask residents to not visit the testing site without an appointment as we want to limit exposure as much as possible.”
Residents are encouraged to call the New York State COVID-19 hotline for a testing appointment at 1-888-364-3065.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, from Yonkers, “ The two new test sites in Westchester County will help our communities better track this virus, provide more resides with the healthcare they need, and monitor potential outbreaks as we move forward with re-opening our economy. I thank Governor Cuomo for listening and recognizing the need for these two test sites, and I appreciated working with Mayor Patterson-Howard and Mayor Spano, and my colleagues in the Senate and Assembly to move this forward. I will continue to work with my colleagues in local and state government to protect our residents and recover from this pandemic.”
The City of Yonkers, with a population of over 200,000, has more than 4,000 cases. The City of Mount Vernon, with a population of 70,000 residents in a densely populated area of just four-square miles, has more than 1,700 cases.
Senator Shelley Mayer said, “Thank you to Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins for her tireless advocacy on behalf of Yonkers’ residents. Working with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Office, Leader Stewart-Cousins ensured that Yonkers residents living in the zip code of highest case concentration would have a testing site conveniently located on Ashburton Avenue. It is crucial to have accessible and widely available testing in all of our communities, particularly those with the greatest number of cases. Thank you to the healthcare workers at the frontlines of this crisis.”
Assembly member Nader Sayegh from Yonkers said, “I’d like to thank Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, Commissioner Zucker from the New York State Department of Health and Governor Cuomo for collaborating to help Yonkers obtain this hard-fought test site. We must continue making use of all available resources to mitigate the spread of this contagion in our most densely populated and vulnerable communities.”
