The city’s first bilingual walk-in COVID-19 testing site is setting up shop in Manhattan on Monday.
The new testing site will be located at 2360 Amsterdam Avenue at 177th Street in Washington Heights. This will be the third site that is operated by SOMOS; the first two are drive-through and located in Queens and the Bronx.
This new facility is by appointment only and will have the capacity to test large numbers of New Yorkers per day. It will be staffed by community doctors who speak the same language as the patients and are capable of addressing cultural barriers to health care access that affect immigrant and undocumented New Yorkers.
Testing will take place between 12 and 4 p.m. each day. Those who would like to make an appointment can call 1-888-364-3065.
According to new poll data from Latino Decisions and SOMOS, 66% of Latinos have difficulty finding necessities such as medicine, food, and household supplies. The poll also found that 57% of Latinos in the U.S. had to cancel or delay medical appointments while 20% have lost their employer-provided health insurance. Furthermore, 63% are worried someone in their household will lose their health insurance and 86% are concerned local hospitals will not have enough supplies to treat the pandemic.
