Covid-19 Testing Crunch Hampers Efforts to Curb Omicron Variant Surge

The number of Covid-19 cases rose by roughly 60% this week, with most caused by Omicron, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director

Rochelle Walensky

said Wednesday. There were 710 million tests performed in the past week, compared with 688 million tests in the week ended Dec. 9.

People across the country aired their exasperation on social media, detailing their often fruitless searches for tests at government sites, drugstores, hospitals and even fire departments. Helicopters dispatched by local newscasts showed crowded test sites on the ground below, and friends texted one another in search of information about where at-home test kits might be available.

“The U.S. is once again a day late and a dollar short in responding to the pandemic,” said

Larry Levitt,

executive vice president for health policy at the San Francisco-based Kaiser Family Foundation. With holiday travel and test-center closures coinciding with the Omicron surge, he called the current situation a testing perfect storm.

In West Palm Beach, Fla., people at times waited four hours in their cars for testing, with police urging the motorists to fill their tanks, use the bathroom and pack water and snacks before lining up.

Hospitals and health departments struggled to keep up with demand, with some turning back people who had come to emergency departments in search of tests so they could travel or return to work.

“The Emergency Rooms are overwhelmed, please do not go to the ER for a COVID-19 test,” the Tippecanoe County Health Department in Lafayette, Ind., said in a Facebook post.

Many hospitals, drugstores and testing facilities said they were operating with reduced staffing because workers were out sick or in isolation or quarantine. CityMD Urgent Care, which operates 153 clinics in the New York City metro region, said this week it was temporarily closing about 30 facilities to “preserve our ability to staff our sites.” CVS limited the number of tests individual shoppers could buy to six, Walgreens to four.

President Biden said on Dec. 21 that the U.S. would procure 500 million tests, which consumers would be able to obtain free of charge via a website to be launched in January.

That timeline provides little comfort to states and cities that are seeing record demand for testing and watching already-crowded and short-staffed hospitals struggle to accommodate additional Covid-19 patients.

The federal government should have begun planning for the surge in testing demand weeks or months ago, Mr. Levitt said.

“Omicron may be milder, but the healthcare system is already on the verge of being overwhelmed in parts of the country,” he said. “Unchecked spread means more people needing hospital care and more healthcare workers out sick unable to care for them.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci,

President Biden’s chief medical adviser, urged people to avoid large New Year’s Eve gatherings in light of the surge.

With test kits sold out or unavailable in many drugstores and online retailers, a secondary market for the kits has popped up on eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. Some sellers were offering the kits at up to five times the usual retail price.

In Raleigh, N.C., cars lined up hours before sunrise Wednesday to await the opening of a test site popular with residents across the state’s Wake County, home to more than one million people.

“Yesterday I was scared to be around my granddaughter, and my family is my life,” said

Anita Romain,

a 54-year-old postal worker waiting in her car in the nearly mile-long line. She was accompanied by her granddaughter, 14-year-old Nia, who she said had been feeling achy and tired since a recent trip to New York City. A family member she stayed with there had tested positive.

Wake County spokeswoman Leah Holdren said the county expected demand for tests to remain high for weeks, noting that during last year’s holiday season the highest demand came Jan. 11, when 7,887 tests were administered. That timing coincided with a return to work for many employees and to campus for many students, she said. The county administered 13,459 tests on Monday, she added.

The county is consulting with the state on opening mass-testing sites later this week at a hockey arena and a minor-league baseball stadium in the Raleigh metro area, she said.

Suppliers of rapid tests said they expected even greater demand for the tests after the holidays, as workers return to offices, schools and other workplaces where Covid-19 testing is now encouraged or required.

“Need is going through the roof,” said

Gordon Thompson,

chief executive officer of Westnet Inc. of Canton, Mass., which distributes Covid-19 tests to municipalities, health centers and universities. He said the current demand for tests echoed the rush for face masks and other protective gear earlier in the pandemic.

“What happened with masks, gloves and hand sanitizer back in March to December of 2020 is now happening to rapid test kits,” he said.

In New York City, a restaurant and concert venue, City Winery, recently responded to the Omicron surge by requiring customers to show not only proof of vaccination, as required by the city, but also a negative Covid-19 test. Soon the restaurant will require proof of a booster shot, too.

Michael Dorf, the venue’s chief executive, said that two months ago he ordered about 5,000 test kits and was offering them free of charge to customers who are unable to get tested elsewhere. “We’re sharing what we have,” he said.

Some public officials and health advocates said the testing crunch had been worsened by the high cost of testing and by sites that cater to people with the time and means to use them.

“It’s a huge problem,” said Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission. “This is a mitigation strategy that is cost-prohibitive for a lot of our vulnerable populations.”

The commission has been working to increase access to free rapid tests and recently distributed 180,000 test kits over three days to area residents through libraries, schools and community centers. The commission is distributing more tests to elderly people, front-line workers and people with disabilities.

Melanie Golembiewski, a family-medicine doctor at Neighborhood Family Practice, a federally qualified health center that works with an underserved population in Cleveland, said many people found it hard to access the drive-through testing sites.

“A lot of our patients are just putting out daily fires,” she said. “These preventative health measures aren’t high on the list. It’s hard to get off work, to get transportation. Language is often a barrier.”

Of the 50 patients the clinic tested this week, 20 were positive for Covid-19.

—Jennifer Levitz contributed to this article.

Write to Valerie Bauerlein at [email protected] and Julie Wernau at [email protected]