Want a coronavirus test in Texas? You may have to wait for hours in a car.
Four months into the pandemic, demand for coronavirus tests is soaring, as protests, the opening of the Texas economy and a resurgence of cases sends nervous residents searching to confirm that they’re virus-free. Problems beset almost every stage of the testing process, starting with the glitching websites and unanswered phone lines used to schedule appointments, and extending to long lags before test results come back.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. A late April
report from Gov. Greg Abbott said "testing is the foundation on which the plan to open Texas is built."
But problems persist, hampering the state’s ability to slow the spread of the virus and identify people who need to isolate.
“It’s not easy at all to get a test,” said Zuniga, an educator. “This is a pandemic. It shouldn’t be, ‘Oh you have to wait two days, you have to wait four days’ for your appointment and then once you get there you have to wait another four or five hours. I’m disheartened.”
Zuniga tried to register for a test at CVS, which is providing free self-swab exams in partnership with the government, after learning she and her daughter might have been exposed to the virus. The website kept crashing and she turned instead to a local clinic.
Her daughter got a test appointment earlier this week. They sat waiting for what felt like “forever,” Zuniga says, two or three hours.
It’s not an uncommon experience.
A line of about 100 cars formed at Barbara Jordan Elementary School in Austin at a COVID-19 testing site. June 26, 2020. Photo credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune
Across the state, test sites are hitting capacity and closing early, and Texans are waiting in hours-long lines to get swabbed.
“Have we been having an uptick? Absolutely,” said Elizabeth Perez, a spokesperson for Harris County Public Health. Testing capacity is “maxing out” every day, she said, with scheduled test slots often claimed by 9 a.m.
Experts and health officials attribute the wait times to systemic issues that have tripped up the state’s testing efforts from the get-go, including a shortage of supplies and an underfunded public health system. That’s coupled with surging demand that some health care organizations say is due to the spread of the virus, employees returning to work and more people being tested in nursing homes, prisons or before medical procedures. Plans for outdoor testing have also been foiled by weather.
In some places, the results are plain to see. Part of the state’s
online test hub has been disabled, and the site says the wait time for phone calls can exceed 30 minutes because of “excessive request volume.”
First: People wait in their cars to get tested at the Portland Community Center. According to authorities at the testing site, there were a maximum of 250 tests available for Saturday morning between 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. Last: People wait in their vehicles to get tested for COVID-19 at a temporary testing site in Mission on Friday. Eddie Seal and Verónica G. Cárdenas The Texas Tribune
Outside testing locations in several cities, stretching lines have become a common sight.
Andrea Rosales, an Austin resident, waited nearly three hours in the car with her young son, who had been in contact with someone with the virus.
Officials were counting the cars and cut off the line behind her. Still, the queue moved slowly, she said. Her son became hungry. She had to use the restroom. A car in front of them broke down.
“I’m just like, “‘Oh my God, we should have [eaten] lunch or something,’ she said. “I just didn't think it was going to take that long.”
A testing location in
San Patricio County, on the Gulf Coast, closed early Friday after reaching capacity in the morning.
In remote Alpine in West Texas, people
queued up for four hours last weekend waiting for a state-run unit to perform tests.
And in San Antonio, a public test site was
booked solid for days last week, and a registration system where people could sign up for appointments was temporarily shut down.
Galileo Gonzalez was able to get tested at a San Antonio clinic earlier this month. But the “ordeal was crazy,” he said; he had to phone the public health hotline for an appointment more than 50 times because the line kept dropping.
A woman reads in her car while waiting to get tested at the Portland Community Center. Photo credit: Eddie Seal for The Texas Tribune.
Gonzalez wanted to get screened after attending a large protest against police brutality. “It was ridiculous how hard it is to get a test,” he said. His results came back negative nine days later.
Clinics and public health authorities are being challenged by the increased demand for tests.
Austin Regional Clinic has recently notified patients that the turnaround time for tests has lengthened, with patients sometimes waiting for five to 10 days. Quest Diagnostics, a lab behemoth, said it’s seeing “record demand,” and that orders for its diagnostic tests have increased by about 50% over the past three weeks.
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