Rick Cotton, the head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and his wife, Elizabeth W. But other efforts at turning tests around rapidly appeared to be more appropriate. State officials privately expressed concern at the time about some of the tests, particularly those for Mr. “During the first weeks of the pandemic, troopers transported thousands of samples from around the state to Wadsworth for testing.” “That was the case for virtually all collections sent to Wadsworth early on,” Mr. William Duffy, a State Police spokesman, said there was “nothing extraordinary” about troopers being involved in the transfer of test samples to the state lab. Results were often delivered by phone to those who were tested within hours after the samples were taken. Once collected, the samples were rushed to the Wadsworth lab with State Police escorts, the people said, and staff at the lab were instructed to stay late into the night to process the tests. Howard Zucker, the two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Eleanor Adams, an epidemiologist and top aide to the state health commissioner Dr. Some of the preferential tests, including those administered to Chris Cuomo and his family, were conducted by Dr. “However,” the spokesman, Matt Dornic, added, “it is not surprising that in the earliest days of a once-in-a-century global pandemic, when Chris was showing symptoms and was concerned about possible spread, he turned to anyone he could for advice and assistance, as any human being would.” ![]() His test came back positive.Ī CNN spokesman said the company did not typically comment on its employees’ medical decisions. Lab capacity in the state increased quickly last March but was still limited as of late in the month, when Chris Cuomo was tested, according to one of the people with direct knowledge of the matter. ![]() Many never learned whether their Covid-like symptoms were the result of the novel virus. Many state residents could not get tested, and those with mild symptoms were often told to quarantine at home rather than attempt to be tested. Even then, the Wadsworth lab had the capacity to process only a few hundred samples. epicenter of the pandemic, the state-run Wadsworth Center in Albany was for a time the only laboratory in the state that was approved to perform virus tests. With the federal government scrambling to meet the demand for testing and New York becoming the U.S. The result was widespread frustration and, for many people, concern about an illness that might be going undetected. ![]() He added: “Among those we assisted were members of the general public, including legislators, reporters, state workers and their families who feared they had contracted the virus and had the capability to further spread it.”Īs the behind-the-scenes effort to secure tests for those with ties to the governor and the administration unfolded, most New Yorkers who believed they might have been exposed to the virus were confronted with what doctors, hospital administrators and health officials described as a confused and troubled state testing system. “In the early days of this pandemic, when there was a heavy emphasis on contact tracing, we were absolutely going above and beyond to get people testing,” he said, adding that the effort included “in some instances going to people’s homes - and door-to door-in places like New Rochelle - to take samples from those believed to have been exposed to Covid in order to identify cases” and to prevent others from developing the disease.
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