Statement from NYGOP Chairman Nick Langworthy

on Kathy Hochul’s Testing Crisis

December 30, 2021

“Kathy Hochul is failing New Yorkers on COVID testing. She is in over her head and her incompetence is on full display. People are being forced to wait for hours and hours for tests where state run sites exist.

“However, there is a lack of state run testing sites in many areas, particularly Upstate. Those state run sites that do exist are difficult to get to for most of the population that they are supposed to serve. The New York State website directs people to pharmacies that do not have appointments available until after their quarantines would be over.

“Taxpayers are resorting to spending hundreds of dollars just to get their hands on reliable and timely testing from for-profit services. At home kits are less accurate, if you can even find one.

“One must ask why we are not returning to mass testing sites in the population centers across New York. Could it be because Governor Kathy Hochul is already using the National Guard for hospital and nursing home shortages to address a crisis of her own making with her vaccine mandates, when they could be deployed to run more state testing sites?

“We knew the Omicron variant was coming for months now, and yet Hochul is completely unprepared. We are almost two years into this pandemic and she has no plan for increased testing. President Biden has abdicated his responsibility to the Governors, but our Governor is not up to the task. She has been a complete failure from Day 1 on leading New York through the pandemic and her incompetence is causing all New Yorkers to suffer.”

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