Buffalo, NY (WBEN) The Erie County Health Department will hold a one day clinic Friday at New Zion Baptist Church parking lot. This after a contact tracing team found a set of individuals with positive COVID-19 tests who attended activities at the New Zion Baptist Church during the same time period.
"Contact tracing is about breaking the chain of transmission," said Commissioner of Health Dr. Gale Burstein. "Our epidemiology team is working with New Zion leadership to communicate directly with its congregation, inform them of their potential exposure and encourage them and their families to get a free diagnostic COVID-19 test at this clinic."
Burstein says the health department will collect and send the test specimens to the NYSDOH Wadsworth Center in Albany for testing. The site at 318 High Street in Buffalo will be open on Friday, July 31 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. for walk-up visits and drive-through traffic.
"This is the first time that we have used knowledge from our case investigations to coordinate a clinic to stop the chain of transmission," says Burstein. "We have a chance to prevent a small grouping of new cases from becoming a much larger outbreak. As we have seen from other parts of New York State, we will probably have to offer a COVID testing clinic like this again. Our entire ECDOH team is prepared to find and isolate new cases and prevent the spread of this disease."
