Testing Trucks Head To Rego Park, Kew Gardens Amid Virus Uptick

REGO PARK, QUEENS — The city has dispatched mobile testing trucks to Rego Park and Kew Gardens this week as health officials work to combat a spike in COVID-19 cases in swaths of Central Queens.

The NYC Health + Hospitals mobile testing sites will administer free coronavirus tests from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day this week through Friday at the Painter's Playground in Rego Park and at Queens Borough Hall. No appointments are needed.

The testing trucks' arrival comes as cases of COVID-19 continue to grow at an "alarming rate" in Kew Gardens, or the ZIP code 11415, and in Kew Gardens Hills and Pomonok, according to the NYC Department of Health.

About 3.3 percent of coronavirus tests have been coming back positive in Kew Gardens as of Tuesday, which is down slightly from the 3.6-percent figure reported Monday but still outpaces the city average.

In Kew Gardens Hills and Pomonok, or the ZIP code 11367, the rate of positive tests hit 3.6 percent as of Tuesday.

And in Rego Park, one of three neighborhoods the Health Department is monitoring due to an "increased growth of cases and test positivity," the positivity rate was just over 2.6 percent Tuesday.

The positivity rates represent a 14-day average, which the Health Department says "can more accurately reflect sustained trends than data pulled from a single day."

Kew Gardens and Kew Gardens Hills are among nine neighborhoods that have accounted for more than 25 percent of the city's new COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks — despite representing just over 7 percent of the city's population.

Other clusters include Edgemere-Far Rockaway and six South Brooklyn neighborhoods.