Several urgent care locations across New York are closing down over staffing concerns as residents continued to rush to get COVID-19 tests.
CityMD posted a message on its website saying that as of Wednesday, certain locations were closing temporarily.
"As so many of you are aware, most CityMD locations are operating at full capacity, doing our best to meet the urgent care needs of the people of New York and New Jersey," CityMD said in a statement posted on its website.
The statement continued, "Continuing to provide these services to the community is a top priority; however, our physicians and teammates are also a priority. To preserve our ability to staff our sites, we are temporarily closing certain locations effective tomorrow, December 22. It is our hope that closing sites now will best allow us to avoid future closures as this surge continues.… Thank you for your patience, and for your appreciation of our hard-working teams who are coping with the extraordinary demand in the midst of the holiday season."
According to the announcement, CityMD is closing 13 locations in New York City, two locations on Long Island and one location in Westchester. The announcement also said that three locations in New Jersey were closing down temporarily.
The full list of locations that are closing can be found here. The full list also includes other CityMD locations that remain open as substitutes for those that have closed.
The announcement by CityMD on Wednesday comes amid a rise in COVID-19 cases, with more Americans, not only in New York, seeking to get tested for the novel virus.
Matt Gove, a spokesperson for CityMD, recently told the Gothamist that over the past three weeks, CityMD's New York City locations have seen a 25 percent increase in the number of patients.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that in addition to privately run COVID-19 testing sites like CityMD, 112 city-run testing locations will be opened by the end of the week.
President Joe Biden also recently announced new efforts to expand COVID-19 testing amid a rise in cases and the spread of the Omicron variant. During a press conference on Tuesday, Biden announced that the White House was purchasing 500 million at-home COVID-19 tests to be delivered to Americans' homes for free.
"We'll be getting these tests to Americans for free. And we'll have websites where you can get them delivered to your home," Biden said.
According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the nation has seen a rise in COVID-19 cases over the past several weeks, and is currently averaging around 149,000 new cases per day.
Data from the CDC also shows that the Omicron variant, which has been detected in a majority of states, now accounts for 73.2 percent of all new COVID-19 cases.
Newsweek reached out to CityMD for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more
