A long line of cars snaked through the parking lot behind First Baptist Church in Huntsville on Monday morning as people waited for COVID-19 tests.
They were there for drive-through testing offered by Thrive Alabama, a local medical nonprofit. Testing was scheduled to open at 10 a.m. But by 10:15 a.m., Thrive had to start turning people away because they’d already reached testing capacity for the day. It took another three hours to test everyone already in line.
“When we started testing in March, we were lucky to get 30 people to come through the line,” said Marr. “The last three (testing days) we’ve had long lines and had to turn people away. But never 15 minutes after we opened. That does show you the increase in the number of people wanting to be tested.”
As coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in Alabama soar to new highs, demand for tests has surged around the state, with mixed results. Some Alabamians have no trouble getting tests, while others face barriers including strict testing criteria, testing supply shortages and long lines.
In Birmingham, calls to UAB Hospital’s call center, which fields requests from people seeking coronavirus tests, have doubled in the past few days, said Jordan DeMoss, UAB Hospital vice president for clinical operations. In Mobile, the city and USA Health partnered to test up to 250 patients a day at the Mobile Civic Center. In Lee County, East Alabama Medical Center’s COVID-19 testing call center fielded about 2,000 calls total last week, but received 676 on Monday alone, according to EAMC officials.
Down the road from Thrive’s twice-weekly drive-through is Huntsville Hospital’s Fever & Flu Clinic, the largest testing location in the area. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, long lines wrapped around the building.
“In the past two days, we tested well over a thousand people, by far the two busiest days we’ve had since the pandemic started,” said Huntsville Hospital CEO David Spillers.
The demand is so high that the clinic is going to now limit testing to patients who have symptoms, he said. He also announced Wednesday that Huntsville Hospital and Thrive would partner to open another drive-through testing site in Huntsville’s John Hunt Park that would test patients with or without a doctor’s note.
Around the state, the rate of positive COVID-19 tests is at 11%, the highest it’s ever been, while COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide have also reached an all-time high.
“Even though we are testing more, we’re finding a greater percentage of people who are positive, and that means we know we have an increase in (virus) transmission going on in the community,” State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said on Tuesday during a press conference.
Nearly every county in Alabama has some testing capacity, though not all test sites operate every day. Tests are available, while supplies last, through county health departments and through federally qualified healthcare centers like Thrive, which do not require insurance. Some private physicians’ offices and urgent care clinics offer testing, too, though availability is spotty in many parts of the state.
The Alabama Department of Public Health maintains a partial list of about 200 testing sites, as well as a 24/7 testing hotline, 1-888-264-2256.
As demand increases, the ease of getting a COVID-19 test varies, according to AL.com readers.
Some said they were able to get tested quickly and easily. Others said they were refused testing because they didn’t meet strict criteria that required an underlying health condition or specific age. Some were turned away due to a shortage of testing supplies. Some said they had to try two or three different medical offices before reaching one where they could be tested.
The CDC has left testing criteria up to state and local agencies, and whether a person meets testing criteria may depend on where they get tested. ADPH’s state lab will only accept test specimens that meet certain guidelines, but urgent care clinics and private practice doctors who send their specimens to commercial labs could have different criteria.
And then there’s wait time. Some Alabamians told AL.com they got their test results within hours; others waited a week or more.
Nationwide, demand for testing has surged, threatening to overwhelm supply chains. Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest medical testing companies in the United States, called testing demand “unprecedented” in a recent statement and said orders for tests grew by about 50 percent over the past three weeks.
DeMoss said UAB Hospital has been able to get the swabs and other specimen collection supplies needed, though reagents – the substances used to analyze COVID-19 samples – aren’t as available as he’d like.
Spillers said Wednesday that the shortage of reagents has been the main factor in limiting Huntsville Hospital’s ability to run more tests in-house.
“Testing continues to be limited in our community and limited nationwide,” he said. “In Huntsville, we get enough (reagent supplies) to do about 2,000 tests a week. Candidly, we could use probably twice that much if we had it, just on our patients, physicians, staff and first responders.”
Marr said she’d like to see the public’s increased desire for testing translate into increased social distancing, mask wearing and other infection-prevention measures.
“I just don’t understand why people won’t wear their masks,” she said. “I want to see it mandated, to keep me safe. The best protection is social distancing, no large groups, wearing a mask and washing your hands.”