Mayor Eric Adams, the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD), the City’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, and NYC Health + Hospitals/Test & Treat Corps announced that the city will distribute 10,000 COVID-19 at-home test kits that are more accessible to New Yorkers that are blind or have low vision.
The at-home test kits—manufactured by Ellume and sent to New York City by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—utilize easier-to-use test components for those who are blind or have low vision and communicate with a user’s smartphone to give an electronic text readout of their result.
The more accessible test kits will be distributed in the coming weeks and will be available through MOPD and a host of additional partner organizations. According to an analysis from New York City Department of City Planning, there are approximately 1 million people across the city that have disclosed having some type of disability, of whom about 200,000 reported having vision difficulty.