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STATEN ISLAND — The Food and Drug Administration approved automated testing equipment for COVID-19 Saturday.

Manufacturer GenMark says the test will significantly boost testing capacity and bring at least one new machine for testing to New York City’s Public Health Lab. It could allow approximately 1,000 more tests per day. GenMark says the machine can run 10 times as many tests as a lab doing manual testing by hand.

US Representative Max Rose (D-NY) claims he was part of a push to get the approval.

“We can’t get tests to everyone that needs them unless we ramp up automated testing approvals for the equipment our labs and hospitals are using,” said Rose. “We’ve made incredible progress in getting testing capacity up into the thousands per day, but we need to do more. GenMark’s approval is a huge step for the city’s lab, which RUMC has been sending their COVID-19 tests to while they await additional approvals for their own equipment, but our work certainly isn’t done.”

The state of New York passed over 10,000 positive coronavirus cases Saturday, with over 7,000 in New York City alone.