How’s COVID test availability in your neighborhood?

by philg

From three weeks ago: Why is it still almost impossible to schedule a COVID-19 test? (at least in Maskachusetts)

How are things now? Here in the Palm Beach area, using the CVS web site, the earliest appointment that I was able to find was for next Friday, January 14, in the reasonably-nearby town of Hobe Sound (at a purpose-built “community test center”, not a CVS per se). The web site cautioned that it might take 3 days to get a result:

(How can anyone travel internationally? For most countries, we need a PCR test within 3 days prior to the trip but it will take 3 days to get a result?)

Adding together 7 days to wait for the test and 3 days to wait for the result, that’s 10 days to know whether or not one has been infected with deadly SARS-CoV-2 and therefore it is time to get monoclonal antibodies, emergency use-authorized pills, etc. There are free line-up-and-wait (usually in a car, since this is Florida and people love to idle in their SUVs) sites, but there are no guarantees regarding wait times (four hours last week in Tampa, but more recently maybe only 40 minutes).

For a Trump-hating, Biden-loving friend who is a professor at the University of California Berkeley, it is straightforward to maintain full confidence in the central planners who have devoted themselves (and a $10 trillion) for two years to the testing challenge. He simply denies that there is any shortage of tests or testing capacity. He asserted that anyone intelligent would have stocked up on at-home kits, as he did months ago, and that, in any case, it is straightforward to order kits via Instacart and have them delivered within hours. (NYT says the at-home kits won’t detect the Dreaded Omicron so maybe these will turn out to be the hand sanitizer of 2022? Consumers thought that Purell was critical to hoard, but it turned out to be useless.) He also pointed out that there are some walk-in test clinics and simply asserted that the waiting time wouldn’t be too long: “I don’t know what the line length is, but … there probably isn’t much of a line.” Anyone who can’t arrange a test within hours of feeling sick is “doing something stupid.” (Biden’s re-election seems secure!)

What would happen if he left the bubble of his multi-$million stocked-with-test-kits bunker? “Coveted COVID tests causing four-hour traffic jams as omicron explodes in Bay Area” (Mercury News):

Waits longer than a week for PCR tests. ‘A lot of people are frustrated’

“Getting vaxxed and boosted was fine — it’s the testing that’s been difficult,” Chandani said.

With California and the U.S. experiencing the worst COVID-19 case spike of the pandemic as the super-contagious omicron variant spreads, Bay Area residents are scrambling to get tested, and some are waiting for appointments more than a week away.

In the Bay Area Vaccine Hunters group on Facebook, set up last winter to help people find vaccine appointments, posts have shifted from where to find a booster shot to how to find a COVID-19 test, moderator Jessica Moore said.

And the antigen rapid tests that can be purchased at pharmacies remain scarce. Schools that were provided them by the state have been running out, and they disappear quickly from store shelves.

“Any time anyone posts on the Facebook site, if you click half an hour later, they’re gone,” Moore said.

Deemed-essential-by-Governor Newsom marijuana stores remain open in California, but “Bay Area schools close due to staff shortages, high case rates” (Mercury News).

Readers: What if you wanted a PCR COVID-19 test right now? How would you get one? How long would it take? (and say, in the comment, where you live)

15 thoughts on “How’s COVID test availability in your neighborhood?”

  1. Apart from the requirement to get a test for international travel, what is the benefit of a test? What are we supposed to do differently knowing that we do or do not have COVID?

    Personally, I have taken tests so I could travel and since my travel date was known well in advance, I was able to schedule the test relatively easily. Here in PNW Kaiser is able to provide results in less than 24 hours, so far.

    Having written that, for my most recent trip I returned from Germany where it felt like you couldn’t walk more than two blocks without passing a testing center that could do PCR or antigen tests. PCR tests where, I think €20 for same day results or €60 for 15 minutes. You could also get antigen tests back in 3 hours for €180.

    The office where I was working required unvaccinated employees to get a tests every morning before entering the office. This meant standing around outside drinking coffee until you got your 15 minute PCR result. At this moment, I believe, bars and restaurants are requiring people to be vaccinated *and* have proof of a less than 24 hour (PCR) or 48 hour (antigen) negative test results. So, it appeared, that a fair amount of the German population was getting a test every day.

    It’s a bit disconcerting that we can’t spend our vast wealth to achieve the same availability of testing.

    Though, I go back to my first question, if you are feeling sick why wouldn’t you just stay home and deal with your symptoms? If somebody walked into my office with symptoms but declared that they had negative COVID result, I would still send them home. The test may have returned a false negative but regardless, why bring some other potentially virulent disease into the workplace? Our policy, we give all employees a generous sick time allowance, if you are feeling sick, use it.

    • Daniel: I think part of the issue is that people spend such a high percentage of the winter at least slightly sick, e.g., with a lingering cold. In Maskachusetts, for example, I can remember having a cold that lasted 5 weeks (could not get rid of the cough and some congestion in chest). If I’d had a government job I guess I could have stayed home for 5 weeks out of #AbundanceOfCaution and still collected full pay, but what about private sector workers?

  2. “if you are feeling sick why wouldn’t you just stay home and deal with your symptoms?” you can get monoclonal antibody therapy that is quite effective against Covid. You can also get ivermectin and hydroxychloroquin through one of the online doctors that will prescribe it and if you can find a pharmacy that will fill the order. Pfizer and Merck have announced anti-covid pills although I do not know if they are approved.

    Phil, Why don’t you ask your anonymous Berkeley friend if you can give his name.

    • Bob: The Pfizer and Merck pills are not “FDA-approved” by pre-2020 standards. But they have “emergency use authorization” that Americans now characterize as “approved” (and therefore it is okay to require, for example, 5-year-olds to be vaccinated with an emergency use authorized drug before they can go to a restaurant in Boston). So they’re not “approved” by pre-2020 standards but they are “approved” now.

      I can’t give out my friend’s name because I don’t think he would want his liberal bona fides questioned. He claims to care about the unfortunates who, through no fault of their own, live in tents just down the hill from his house,which is worth more than 10X the cost of the average American homeowner’s home. What if someone were to ask “If you care so much about the vulnerable, why not scale down to a house that is worth only 5X what the average American home buyer spends and donate the surplus funds to a charity that houses the unhoused?”

  3. We live in Brooklyn. Most of the testing is done at urgent care facilities located throughout NYC. During the pandemic (after testing became available) the lines at these centers have seen the normal ebb and flow. The longest wait I have heard of is a couple of hours, from standing in line to testing. I am sure there are worse horror stories. Generally, as a family, we haven’t been testing regularly as no one has been symptomatic and we’ve been fairly lucky. That changed recently when both my daughters tested positive (asymptomatic after a week). Wife and daughters stood in line for their test at an urgent care (1hr wait). Because of the positive result, I decided to get tested also. As I didn’t want to stand in line in Brooklyn in winter I looked around for options. We live in a Hasidic part of Brooklyn and I noticed a health clinic a block away, so I asked if they did testing. Well needless to say they did and there was/is absolutely no line. I decided to order some at-home kits and I ordered from ihealth.com. No mark-up ($160 for 9 2 packs) and they shipped within a few days. Want to have them around for people/places that just want a test result.

  4. In Seattle area, https://covid19.altiusdiagnostics.com/ will get you tested on Tuesday – two days out (as they are closed on weekends), results the same day. In the past you could get appointment as soon as you liked, so current scare added an extra day of waiting. $100 if you pay out of pocket.

    That sweeps aside questions why get tested at all unless you feeling seriously under (in which case, you’d hit ER and they do their testing anyway).

  5. If I wanted another PCR test, I’d call my surgeon and have them fax an order to a hospital about 15 miles away. I think I could get the test tomorrow and have the results back by monday. I’m in Maskachusetts in a relatively rural area but the combined health care and insurance industry has about $150,000 invested in my survival right now, and I think I could get a PCR right away. Bottom line: if you want access to fast PCR testing, just get really, really sick.

    Otherwise the local pharmacies are all telling me that rapid tests are out of stock and nobody knows when they’re coming in.

  6. >and therefore it is time to get monoclonal antibodies
    Lucky enough they are useless against Omicron. While I was still in Florida and tested positive, I chickened out and asked my doctor-wife is I should drive to get MAB. She said: “Nah, only single, latest MAB is effective against Omicron, it’s in short supply and they are not going to have it at the drive-in site”. I googled it and she was right. Anyway, turns out it’s not that bad, couple days of very annoying coughing and then it’s fine.

    >NYT says the at-home kits won’t detect the Dreaded Omicron.
    Lies, Binaxnow kits detect Omicron just fine, but not early. From our experience first tests when you feel symptoms can be negative, then you’ll get positive tests 2-3 days in.

    Anyway, Americans are getting a long forgotten taste of planned economy. Lets see how it works out long term.

  7. UC Health in Northern Colorado has a drive through testing facility. I just went to look at availability (they schedule PCR testing up to 2 weeks out), and every day, every hour had a plethora of availability. I went there in December to get a PCR test (international travel), and got my results in 15 hours.

  8. There are at least three private labs within walking distance from my apartment where you can get a walk-in PCR test. Results are usually available at the very late the next day. Costs ~$30. Not feeling like dragging your feet to the lab? Add another $30 and they will come and do it at your premises.

    Saint Petersburg, Russia (but it’s pretty much the same in any other big city here).

  9. If workplaces, restaurants and our government are requiring that you show negative test or vaccination card now — to save lives and for the good of society — why not do the same for other save-lives and better-society needs?

    Let’s start with cars and public transportation. They must all be equipped with breathalyzer for the ignition to start. But why stop there? Add them to schools and workplace too and make it a requirement to pass the test before entering the school (students and teachers) or workplace. Why not to public events? How about homes? Wife or husband cannot enter the house without passing the test (to prevent domestic violence).

    Next, we can focus on mental health and positive thinking. Before leaving home or workspace, entering home or workspace, taking a vacation, going to an event, going on an errand, et. al., we must pass sociological test to prove that the person is sane.

    Oh wait, did I just describe another Hollywood move, such as Equilibrium [1]?

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film)

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