A nurse holds a vial and a swab for coronavirus testing. | AP Photo New York hospitals could soon 'completely run out' of swabs needed for coronavirus testing

NEW YORK — New York City hospitals are scrambling to find swabs needed to test for coronavirus, according to an alert sent out by one of the city’s top doctors Saturday. The shortage comes at the same time officials are talking about widespread testing as a necessary tool to reactivate the economy.

Jamming a long swab into the throat or several inches into the nostril of a suspected Covid-19 patient is a common way to test for the disease in less-serious cases. However, hospitals around the city are increasingly unable to perform the simple screening for want of the Q-tip-like devices.


“As the swab supply continues to decline, there is a real possibility hospitals will completely run out,” Demetre Daskalakis, a doctor and deputy commissioner at the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, wrote in an alert sent out to health care providers Saturday. “At this time, providers are reminded to only test hospitalized patients in order to preserve resources that are needed to diagnose and appropriately manage patients with more severe illness.”

If the city were to run out of these swabs, it would severely curtail official's ability to confirm cases of coronavirus and keep tabs on the movement of the disease. And in the long run, a protracted shortage would hobble Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vision for bringing the city's economy back online.

“Right now testing is still a rarity, and it needs to be much more widespread to get to the next phase,” the mayor said during a press conference Friday. “And then really what we'd like is universal capacity, meaning that anyone who needed a test at any time could get it.”

The mayor called on the federal government to provide mass quantities of both standard coronavirus tests and antibody tests, which would show whether a person has already been infected and has since recovered. However, a swab shortage has plagued the U.S. response to the pandemic from the start. Not only are the devices suddenly in widespread demand, straining supply chains, but a major manufacturer of them is based on Lombardy, Italy — one of the hot spots of the pandemic.

Saturday's alert also recommended that every hospital employee should wear a mask — not just those working directly with Covid-19 patients. And according to a recent POLITICO report, mental health workers and support staff are reporting to facilities run by the city's Health + Hospitals Corp.

Those workers have raised concerns that the policy is unnecessarily putting their health at risk. And the instruction that they should wear masks will likely serve as cold comfort.