Massive crowds of people scrambled to get free Covid-19 testing kits from New York City workers with Christmas Day hours away, as coronavirus cases driven by the Omicron variant continue to rise.
The city on Friday handed out thousands of kits, with two tests per box, across the five boroughs, in an effort to ease lines at slammed testing sites. But the fight for the kits in at least one location was more chaotic than at the testing sites.
Dozens and perhaps hundreds of people were pictured amassed around a building on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn where workers were handing out the kits with plastic gloves. The New Yorkers held their hands out over each other in attempt to snag the high-demand item. There was no social distancing.
The other four distribution sites in the other boroughs were the corner of West 125th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Manhattan, Bryan Park in the Bronx, Woodhaven between Jamaica Avenue and 92nd Street in Queens and the Staten Island Ferry.
The Binax at-home tests were distributed at the sites beginning at 9am, and each location only had about 2,000 each. City workers also distributed them at sites in each borough on Thursday.
Many drugstores posted signs that they were sold out of test kits.
Meanwhile, lines at testing sites wrapped around for blocks and results took three to four days, notably longer than before the Omicron variant spread. One site charged $150 for same-day test results and $389 for results in two hours, according to NBC New York.
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