DETROIT (WXYZ) — Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan held another daily coronavirus briefing on Wednesday afternoon.
Duggan was joined by Chief Public Health Office Denise Fair and Medical Director Dr. Najibah Rehman to update the results of a recent process to verify the accuracy of the 15-minute Abbott tests the city has been using.
According to the city, they wanted to test the accuracy of the 15-minute tests, and sent 49 samples to the state lab to be tested. All of those samples had come up negative on the 15-minute Abbott test.
The city said that of the 49 samples, 48 came back negative, and the last one was inconclusive. They did another test on that person, and it came back negative.
Executive Fire Commissioner Eric Jones also talked about the fire department's role in helping test residents at city nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
He and Jeffrey Gaglio, the President of the Emergency Medical Services Officers Association, talked about how a crew of 30 EMS supervisors have worked tirelessly to test thousands of people at nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
"They continue to show up and serve," Jones said. "We are actually deploying more units now than before the pandemic."
Fair said that the city also expects to be finished testing at long-term care facilities by the end of the week, and they are working on a strategy to address cases in senior home apartment buildings. There are 10,000 across the city.
Duggan also introduced C. Mikel Oglesby, who is the new Executive Director of Transit for the city. Oglesby had previously worked in Miami for the South Florida Transit Authority and has 30 years of experience in transit.
According to Duggan, they were looking for someone who was an expert in buses and light rail.
Duggan said that he could see a point in the future where casinos and restaurants open up with a 25% capacity or around there, but he thinks we're six months to a year away from casinos operating the way people are used to.
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