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Thursday, January 6, 2022

Coveted COVID tests causing four-hour traffic jams as omicron explodes in Bay Area - Vallejo Times-Herald

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On Wednesday, the backup on the Auto Mall Parkway was four hours. On Thursday, it was shorter, but Deven Chandani gave up, found a place to park and walked to Irvington High School instead.

All to get his hands on one of the most-coveted items in any medicine cabinet on the planet: COVID-19 tests so his kids can return to school when class resumes Monday.

He’s had just as much of a pain trying to schedule a test for his wife so she can fly to Bombay at the end of the month.

“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.

FREMONT, CA – JANUARY 6: Fremont Unified School District staff member Trudy Parker, right, distributes COVID-19 test kits on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Fremont, Calif. The Fremont Unified School District distributed rapid test kits to students and staff members at three school sites in the district. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)

Bay Area health officials say they’ve been hit by a combination of explosive demand from the rapidly spreading virus, supply constraints and severe staffing shortages often caused by COVID-19 illness affecting test administrators and labs that process the samples.

“The demand we’re seeing right now has really never been this high,” said Dr. Jennifer Tong, associate chief medical officer at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, who oversees the county’s testing operation. “That’s partly due to just the number of infections, and the number of people they’ve been in contact with trying to get tested, and the worried well, and those trying to test for travel. The sheer number of people trying to access testing is unprecedented.”

Santa Clara County’s largest site for molecular PCR tests at the county fairgrounds has ramped up from 1,500 daily tests last week to about 5,000.

But efforts to staff up and meet demand have been hampered by personnel testing positive or being unable to come in due to unexpected child care needs, Tong said. Of 25 staff that were to be added Monday, only eight were available.

Tong said the lab they work with to process the tests has been sending samples to Texas due to staff shortages and, as a result, turnaround times have stretched.

In Contra Costa County, the two county-run testing sites and the state testing sites were showing the earliest appointments a week out, on Jan. 13.

“We do often add appointments each morning for county sites depending on capacity, but those get snapped up fast,” Health Services spokesman Will Harper said.

FREMONT, CA – JANUARY 6: Fremont Unified School District staff members distribute COVID-19 test kits at Irvington High School on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Fremont, Calif. The Fremont Unified School District distributed rapid test kits to students and staff members at three school sites in the district. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)

In Alameda County, demand at county sites is exceeding the last peak in September, and some community testing sites are reporting a fourfold increase.

In San Mateo County, the county-operated PCR testing sites that provide about 15% of testing countywide were about 10% above capacity, spokesman Preston Merchant said.

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.

“I know a lot of people are frustrated,” Moore said. “I’ve had trouble finding PCR tests for anything less than two weeks out, and by the time I find one and send someone to it, it’s already been taken.”

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.

The sudden testing shortages have drawn criticism from health experts who say government leaders shouldn’t have been caught flat-footed by the omicron surge.

FREMONT, CA – JANUARY 6: Boxes of COVID-19 test kits are photographed on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Fremont, Calif. The Fremont Unified School District distributed rapid test kits to students and staff members at three school sites in the district. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)

Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant epidemiology professor at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health who’s advocated for more aggressive use of rapid tests, asked on Twitter, “Why do we keep waiting in this pandemic and acting only when it’s absolutely apparent we screwed up?”

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients said in a news briefing Wednesday that the administration is providing an additional $10 billion for testing in schools, and rapid test production has ramped up from fewer than 50 million to more than 200 million a month. But President Joe Biden’s promise last month to make a half billion rapid tests available free for people to order online remains a work in progress.

“Americans will start receiving free tests in the coming weeks,” Zients said.

County officials have been working to try to alleviate backups. Santa Clara County is moving a Gilroy testing site to San Martin on Monday for improved traffic flow and working to get more at-home tests. San Mateo County is adding a new testing site at the Event Center and expanding hours at existing sites. Contra Costa County is working with the state to expand capacity at its four sites in the county.

All that may be little comfort to those who need a test now. Health officials advise those exposed or feeling ill to isolate if they can’t find a test. In the meantime, Tong suggests those needing a test just keep trying throughout the day.

“Some people get very lucky,” she said.

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Coveted COVID tests causing four-hour traffic jams as omicron explodes in Bay Area - Vallejo Times-Herald
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