Free Bay Terrace COVID Testing Site Opens After Locals' Pleas

Kayla Levy
Updated ·2 min read

BAYSIDE, QUEENS —A new, free COVID clinic is open in Bay Terrace, following calls from neighbors for more local, accessible testing options.

The mobile van will offer rapid antigen COVID testing, as well as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines and boosters, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Bay Terrace Shopping Center parking lot during the first week of February (from Monday through Sunday).

The free, city-run Bay Terrace site is one of several in Bayside (including a self-testing site at Council Member Vickie Paladino's office and a location at Raymond O'Connor Park) but it will fill what neighbors see as a need in the neighborhood.

At a meeting last week with the Bay Terrace Community Alliance, one of the "topics of concern" raised by locals was area COVID testing, said Joseph Forgione, vice president controller of Cord Meyer, the development company that owns the Bay Terrace Shopping Center.

In response, Cord Meyer and State Senator John Liu worked together to bring a van to the mall shopping lot, Forgione said, noting that the center is "an easily accessible, central location for COVID testing and vaccinations."

The mobile clinic will be parked in the lot near SoBol, Cord Meyer said, with appointments available on a walk-up basis.

All testing and shots will be administered by DocGo/Rapid Reliable Testing providers; contractors from the city's Test & Trace Corps, which is overseeing over 100 city-run testing sites across the five boroughs.

News of the mobile site comes as COVID rates in Bayside begin to drop from omicron-induced all-time-highs, following a citywide trend.

At a 16 percent case rate over the past week, Bayside's COVID rate dropped to the lowest its been since the week of Christmas, data shows.

Barring the past months' omicron peak, though, the case rate remains higher than any other time since Aug. 2020, when the city began releasing local COVID data.

To find another place to get tested for COVID-19, use the city's official map or visit a walk-in Health + Hospitals site. To get vaccinated or boosted, visit vaccinefinder.nyc.gov.

This article originally appeared on the Bayside-Douglaston Patch