A Win for Transit Workers: Expedited Centers for MTA Employees

This is the text of the Daily News article:
The MTA partners with hospital group on quick coronavirus tests for transit workers
A few hundred MTA employees with coronavirus symptoms will be quickly tested for the disease under a new partnership announced Wednesday between the agency and Northwell Health, New York state’s largest health care provider.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have identified roughly 400 transit workers who have COVID-19 symptoms, and provided that list to Northwell Health.

Starting Friday, those workers will be directed to visit one of the health care provider’s 52 urgent care clinics in the New York City area for a coronavirus test. The partnership will cover about 50 MTA employees per day, said agency chairman Pat Foye.

“The quantity of testing is a national issue,” said Foye. “We hope to test every transit worker, but right now with the Northwell partnership, which we’re really excited about, we’re going to deal with the symptomatic transit workers first.”

The announcement comes a day after the NYPD and FDNY announced a similar partnership with Northwell Health to test front-line cops and firefighters for the disease.

As of Wednesday, at least 59 MTA employees have died from coronavirus, and more than 2,200 have tested positive for the disease.

Transit workers have over the last month been forced to seek coronavirus tests on their own accord.

Officials from Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents 40,000 New York City transit workers, have for weeks called for their members to get higher priority for tests.

“It required a lot of agitation and advocacy by workers and unions like TWU Local 100 to make it happen,” Local 100 president Tony Utano said of the partnership. “Why the wealthiest country in the world couldn’t quickly get the necessary testing is something someone will have to answer to at some point.”