Health official urges monthly testing for Covid-19.

A top city public health official encouraged New Yorkers Monday to get tested for coronavirus every month.

The city is relying on widespread testing to keep the spread of the virus in check, but long delays in test results have marred the effort — with some patients reporting waits of two weeks or longer to get their results back.

Since June, the city has encouraged all New Yorkers to seek a test, whether or not they have symptoms of Covid-19. Dr. Jay Varma, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s senior adviser for public health, went further Monday, saying tests should be repeated every month.

“The rule of thumb that I follow myself, and encourage others to do, is to make sure you’re tested at least once every month,” Varma said at a press briefing with the mayor. “That’s kind of a good rule of thumb. In an ideal world, we would have readily available tests that people could even just get in their homes, but we’re not in that world right now. So about once a month is practical.”

Read more, and pictured above, our Ladyada waiting to get her August COVID-19 test, 2 days ago, me, and the sign outside the door. One of our goals is to encourage all of Adafruit team(s), local, on-site, working from home, and remote, to get prepared for monthly testing and making it part of our routines. Many of us have had the antibody test and have had testing, the way forward is to keep it up.