New York State has opened a new COVID-19 testing site at the Center for Tomorrow building on North Campus, one of 10 new testing locations opening on college campuses across the state, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced at a briefing in Rochester Monday.
The site opened Friday and will provide roughly 200 tests per day, university spokesperson Cory Nealon wrote in an email. The testing location will be open on weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.
New York State residents, whether enrolled at UB or not, can schedule an appointment using the state’s website. Walk-ins are also accepted.
During the briefing, Hochul explained that campuses were an obvious choice because they already have the infrastructure to run mass testing campaigns.
“Students at college campuses are not in school right now, but they were testing before they left campus,” Hochul said at the Monday briefing. “They had facilities, they had the infrastructure set up for testing.”
Hochul also announced that all campus parking payments will be waived for those with testing appointments and that the sites will be staffed by the New York Army National Guard. The governor said that more sites on other college campuses will open soon.
The governor’s office has announced that 10 additional sites will open the week of Jan. 10.
“We’re just getting ramped up,” she said. “This idea just came together literally 24 hours ago, so we’re just getting started.”
Nine more testing sites will open or have opened on other campuses this week, including Buffalo State College, Stony Brook University, the University at Albany, Purchase College, Syracuse University, Binghamton University, SUNY Oswego, SUNY Plattsburgh and SUNY Cortland, all of which will have the same hours as the UB site. Syracuse University is also offering tests at the Carrier Dome between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m, Sunday through Friday.
The governor’s office declined to comment on how long the testing site will be operational.
Grant Ashley is a senior news/features editor and can be reached at grant.ashley@ubspectrum.com
Grant Ashley is the editor in chief of The Spectrum. He's also reported for NPR, WBFO, WIVB and The Buffalo News. He enjoys taking long bike rides, baking with his parents’ ingredients and recreating Bob Ross paintings in crayon. He can be found on the platform formerly known as Twitter at @Grantrashley.
Photo: Ryan Hagen | UB Athletics
