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I really do not understand what the hold up is. In California I know over ten people whose results have taken more than seven or eight days to come back. This i

by gboss 6y ago

I really do not understand what the hold up is. In California I know over ten people whose results have taken more than seven or eight days to come back. This is in the past two weeks. I am still waiting for my results from Sunday six days ago. It really is inexcusable how mismanaged this epidemic is in the United States.

TaylorAlexander 6y ago
Agreed. Our president and many others focused on a vaccine while ignoring the need for PPE, tests, and contact tracing. Tens of thousands of Americans have died needlessly because we have failed to control the outbreak.
qserasera 6y ago
perhaps you should question what they're doing with your sample
matt_kantor 6y ago
I was tested nine days ago in the bay area. Still waiting for my results.
MertsA 6y ago
I live in Florida and was exposed to some respiratory illness with symptoms consistent with Covid-19. As soon as I had symptoms I immediately did what I could to get tested and specifically went for the fastest PCR test I could find (I'm in between primary care providers, couldn't find a way to even try to get a rapid test in my area). My insurance provider lists the only testing location covered as an undisclosed drive through site located somewhere in a city a good hour and a half drive away from me, with the second closest location being a 2 hour drive. The county had a free testing event scheduled for 2 days later but only had 400 tests, was first come first serve, and explicitly stated that you couldn't line up before they started testing as they literally weren't opening the gate to let traffic off of the street before then. The county also listed a 10 day wait before test results would even be available which is just flat out useless. Luckily the day before the county testing event my wife managed to find free testing offered by Quest in a somewhat nearby city that advertised that results would be available in 3-5 days instead of the 10 that the county claimed. I went there, got the nasal swab done, filled out a bunch of forms with clipboards and pens that were being reused with no sanitization between people, and signed up for Quest's online accounts to get the results. Today is literally the first day that I'm free from quarantine. Not because I got my test results back, but because the latency in testing has gotten so drawn out that even if that test eventually comes back positive, I already meet the CDC guidelines for ending quarantine. That test was completely useless for me and only serves to add some data to the statistics around the pandemic. Right now, if you want to get tested and you're not a high priority case (i.e. hospitalized), at least in my area, you can't even do that for all practical purposes. It would be arguably better if they just randomly tested only 50% and had a more reasonable backlog than testing 100% with a backlog so long that all but the high priority tests are useless by the time the results are available. We've had literally months of time to ramp up testing nationwide. This pandemic is far from over and it's already killed 145,000 Americans. This is inexcusable incompetence by the legislative and executive branch.
- manquer 6y ago
  I am not sure the delay is due to the backlog only . There are only few locations that actually run the assays the logistics of getting the sample to a location is significant. Not to mention regent and other resource shortages mean some locations are off and can’t process anyone . Your sample gets moved somewhere else Also testing is many times done like binary searches. Some 96 samples are combined and tested , if it is are negative no further tests required , if they come positive breakdown and so on . While even in the worst case you may will not need 96 separate tests, the steps are sequential, tests will take more time if more people on average become positive.

by gboss 6y ago

TaylorAlexander 6y ago

Agreed. Our president and many others focused on a vaccine while ignoring the need for PPE, tests, and contact tracing. Tens of thousands of Americans have died needlessly because we have failed to control the outbreak.

qserasera 6y ago

perhaps you should question what they're doing with your sample

matt_kantor 6y ago

I was tested nine days ago in the bay area. Still waiting for my results.

MertsA 6y ago

I live in Florida and was exposed to some respiratory illness with symptoms consistent with Covid-19. As soon as I had symptoms I immediately did what I could to get tested and specifically went for the fastest PCR test I could find (I'm in between primary care providers, couldn't find a way to even try to get a rapid test in my area). My insurance provider lists the only testing location covered as an undisclosed drive through site located somewhere in a city a good hour and a half drive away from me, with the second closest location being a 2 hour drive. The county had a free testing event scheduled for 2 days later but only had 400 tests, was first come first serve, and explicitly stated that you couldn't line up before they started testing as they literally weren't opening the gate to let traffic off of the street before then. The county also listed a 10 day wait before test results would even be available which is just flat out useless. Luckily the day before the county testing event my wife managed to find free testing offered by Quest in a somewhat nearby city that advertised that results would be available in 3-5 days instead of the 10 that the county claimed. I went there, got the nasal swab done, filled out a bunch of forms with clipboards and pens that were being reused with no sanitization between people, and signed up for Quest's online accounts to get the results. Today is literally the first day that I'm free from quarantine. Not because I got my test results back, but because the latency in testing has gotten so drawn out that even if that test eventually comes back positive, I already meet the CDC guidelines for ending quarantine. That test was completely useless for me and only serves to add some data to the statistics around the pandemic. Right now, if you want to get tested and you're not a high priority case (i.e. hospitalized), at least in my area, you can't even do that for all practical purposes. It would be arguably better if they just randomly tested only 50% and had a more reasonable backlog than testing 100% with a backlog so long that all but the high priority tests are useless by the time the results are available. We've had literally months of time to ramp up testing nationwide. This pandemic is far from over and it's already killed 145,000 Americans. This is inexcusable incompetence by the legislative and executive branch.

manquer 6y ago
I am not sure the delay is due to the backlog only . There are only few locations that actually run the assays the logistics of getting the sample to a location is significant. Not to mention regent and other resource shortages mean some locations are off and can’t process anyone . Your sample gets moved somewhere else Also testing is many times done like binary searches. Some 96 samples are combined and tested , if it is are negative no further tests required , if they come positive breakdown and so on . While even in the worst case you may will not need 96 separate tests, the steps are sequential, tests will take more time if more people on average become positive.