Healthcare Workers On Overload At COVID Test Sites in Dutchess County
In New Paltz, nurses in blue scrubs wait in a row. In Pine Plains, cars circle the local drugstore like a fast-food drive through. In Fishkill and Pleasant Valley, patients are escorted into private rooms.
All over Dutchess County, people are getting tested for COVID-19.
As of Feb. 8, there are 555 active cases in Dutchess County and 62,287 cases total since March 2020 according to the county government’s COVID-19 dashboard. Following a peak in new cases beginning in December 2021, the total COVID-19 cases in New York State has reached 4.84 million since the start of the pandemic.
In order to keep citizens safe, new state testing sites opened at the beginning of the year. On Jan. 10, SUNY New Paltz transformed their College Terrace building into a hub for medical activity.
“When we first started it was about 300 tests, now on a daily basis it’s maybe about 100,” stated Erica Hope, a medical assistant at the SUNY test site.
Although the site has had many visitors, they still experience lulls in demand for testing.
“We’ve got a lot of people, they just don’t know about the site yet,” stated Hope.
44 miles away, as many as 160 people a day visit the Pine Plains Pharmacy in hopes of getting a drive-through PCR test.
Jeannie Prager, the front-end manager at the pharmacy, is responsible for administering COVID-19 tests. Monday through Sunday she walks to patient’s cars in medical gear and guides them through the testing process.
“We let people do it themselves, so I think it puts them more at ease,” she stated.
Although the self-administered tests generally cause less anxiety, testing can still be an extremely stressful process. When she notices a patient is particularly nervous, Prager offers them some advice.
“Just breathe!”
Overall, demand for testing in the Hudson Valley has decreased in recent weeks, despite a high need through the holiday season.
“During the height of it we were doing about 120 tests a day,” explained Chrichany Rodriguez, a medical assistant at the Excel Urgent Care of Fishkill.
In November and December, the wait at the Excel Urgent Care lasted two to three hours for walk-in appointments. A similar phenomenon occurred at the Valley Urgent Care in Pleasant Valley, a test site that sees about 40 to 50 patients a day.
“Through the holidays there was definitely a wait,” explained admin Arly Cop.
This high demand during the holiday season has largely been attributed to the spread of the omicron variant, a highly contagious mutation of the COVID-19 virus.
“That was what we were seeing a lot of November, December, and the first and second week of January,” Prager said.
Not only has the variant increased the need for testing, but it also has led to more positive test results.
“We’ve been getting a lot of positives ever since omicron came out,” said Rodriguez.
As COVID-19 remains a threat to those in Dutchess county, Hope offered some advice to citizens debating getting tested.
“Get tested, the virus is real!”
