Rapid Testing Coming to NY Airports

Flying into JFK or LaGuardia Airport anytime soon?

Your next arrival to New York might be a little different. New York is planning on having testing sites in both John F Kennedy International, and LaGuardia airports in New York in an attempt to keep travelers from bringing COVID-19 into New York State and keep the transmission rate as low as possible.

In speaking about these new airport testing sites during a recent news conference Cuomo said that they would be able to do faster testing of people coming in. The new testing sites will be set up by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in conjunction with NYC Health + Hospitals.  

“We’re actually setting up testing sites at our airports. We’ll be able to do faster testing of people coming in, including hospital staff,” Cuomo said Monday at a news conference on Long Island. “Our infection rate is low,” he said. “The question is how do you keep it low? How do you make sure you’re not getting infected from people coming in from other states where the infection rate is high?”

This new announcement comes as New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut push hard to keep a mandated 14-day quarantine, for those coming from certain states with a higher than normal infection rate per capita. New York is making this a hard rule after having over 400,000 cases before being outshined by other states such as Florida, Texas, and California which have now all surpasses New York’s level of infections. People who are found to have violated the quarantine rule can be fined in upwards of $10,000.

The new program with on-airport testing sites has been in the planning stage for a while said the Port Authority. It’s been working with both state and city officials to find ways to expand testing and help reduce transmission of COVID-19. The agency has already begun a testing program with XpresCheck which launched at JFK’s Terminal 4 around the end of June, however, it was primarily aimed at airport and airline workers in the terminal. It has now been expanded to all travelers as of last week. Delta Airlines has also begun offering it’s employees rapid testing before flights at JFK.

As of last week, the Port Authority has now also opened a similar testing facility operation for airport workers at Newark Liberty International Airport’s Terminal B, and is planning on also expanding it to all travelers within the next month.