This is what a pop-up coronavirus testing center in Brooklyn looks like.
Urgent care clinic ParCare Community Health Network has been operating a tented COVID-19 testing site in Bensonhurst outside one of its locations at 60th Street and Bay Parkway amid the city’s coronavirus pandemic.
CEO of the clinic Gary Schlesinger said Thursday that the medical center, which also has a location in Williamsburg, has tested about 1,000 people since Sunday.
About 10 percent of those patients tested positive for the potentially deadly bug, Schlesinger said.
“To protect our staff, anyone who has any of the symptoms coronavirus — we have big signs all over, ‘please do not come in our facility.’ We put up a tent outside,” said Schlesinger.
“Because of the amount we have, we don’t want to just test anyone. It has to be someone with symptoms,” the CEO said, adding that once a doctor determines that someone meets the criteria to be tested, a swabbing will be conducted inside the tent.
Then the swabs are sent to an outside lab, said Schlesinger who noted that the wait time for results is up to 72 hours.
“As of now, we’ve almost gone through the whole inventory of swabs,” he said.
On Thursday, about 30 people lined up within minutes before the outdoor Bensonhurst test site opened at 11 a.m.
Dominick Lagonigro, 59, a construction worker, was among those to be tested Thursday.
“I went to a friend’s house — me and my wife. We had dinner. And yesterday a friend called us and said her sons tested positive for the coronavirus and now we’re concerned. My son has lung problems,” Lagonigro said.
“I just wanna make sure if I have it. I just want to tell everyone else they have it as well,” he said, adding that he is not experiencing any symptoms. “I don’t feel anything. Nothing whatsoever. I just wanna make sure.”
