Coronavirus testing has continued to be a struggle in Utah this week, with patients reporting long queues at test sites, days waiting for results, and frustration at finding a way to get tested.
“Our availability of evidence right now leaves something to be desired,” Dr. Brandon Webb, an infectious disease physician at Intermountain Healthcare, told a news conference this week. “We really need to increase test availability and delivery times. I think we all hear about patients who are going to get tested and don’t get test results for two or three days.”
For those undergoing tests that are processed in laboratories, according to state data, the wait for results is now longer, on average, than at any time since a widespread coronavirus test became available in the spring. of 2020. And delays in access and results may mean that the count of cases reported by state health officials does not fully reflect the spread of the virus.
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced national initiatives “to make testing more available, more affordable and more comfortable.” He promised to increase rapid test production and said major retailers, including Kroger, the grocery chain that includes Smith stores in Utah, will begin selling tests at home at a price that will begin as soon as next week. .
But for now, Utah patients say they still have a hard time getting tested.
Many private providers such as pharmacies and clinics still did not have much availability as of Thursday afternoon. CVS had no appointments the next day at the Wasatch front, and Walgreens only had a handful across the state. And pharmacies have constantly sold home tests.
The University of Utah Health restricted testing only to patients with symptoms and those who had spent more than seven days in an exposure to someone who had already been diagnosed, and as of Thursday, only two appointments were available the next day. one in Park City and one in Orem.
And the company Orem Nomi Health, which now operates almost all of the free TestUtah sites previously managed by the state, still sees long queues at some of its locations.
“Very difficult to navigate”
Dr. Christopher Pelt, an orthopedist at University Hospital, looked for a test available after his teenage daughter fell ill Tuesday and found that the closest place the same day to her Park City home was a TestUtah site in Holladay. . The line was long, with only an hour of scheduled test operations, he said, and staff said anyone who was still there at closing time should leave and drive to another location.
Pelt’s daughter finally returned home after Pelt escaped a last-minute slot at the Park City Clinic in the United States. But a computer error delayed his results three more days.
“The whole system has been very difficult to navigate and I’m a doctor,” Pelt said. “I can’t imagine how difficult that is for people who aren’t caring.”
Intermountain Healthcare has drastically increased its testing in recent weeks with a self-service saliva test available at various clinic locations; their test volumes tripled in less than two weeks in mid-August, according to data from the Utah Department of Health.
Meanwhile, TestUtah has “made some operational changes” to ease waiting times at some of its sites, Hudachko said. Last week, the state health department transferred almost all of its test sites to Nomi Health, in order to redirect its own testing teams of National Guard members and public health workers to schools to make “permanence test” operations.
But schools cannot begin residency testing requirements until they reach 2% infection or, in smaller schools, identify 30 cases. And is that difficulties with testing can distort the data of how many children in Utah are hiring COVID-19, said Dr. Andrew Pavia, director of hospital epidemiology at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital.
In a briefing Thursday, Pavia noted that about a quarter of new cases of COVID-19 that are now reported in Utah are among school-age children, more than double the rate observed last winter.
“And that’s even though it’s pretty hard to test your child,” Pavia said, suggesting the rate could be even higher.
[Read more: Utahns’ choices are ‘hurting children,’ doctor warns, as more kids get sick with COVID-19]
Fewer test sites, more waits
Just as state teams were diverted to schools that weren’t really testing and Nomi took over the state’s public testing sites, the demand for testing exploded. Test volumes are now reaching levels not seen since February; UDOH reported on Thursday that 17,411 people had been tested for the first time the day before and a total of 27,882 people were tested.
Some of TestUtah’s places, like the one Dr. Pelt’s daughter visited, have been flooded, though others have not. Patients at the TestUtah site in the UDOH office building reported last week such long lines that people, desperate for a bath, got out of cars and freed themselves from the bushes. But this week, the same place has barely had a line of more than three cars, Hudacko said.
Because waits have been so uneven since TestUtah began accepting walk-ins at all locations, UDOH is redirecting some of its testing equipment from schools to Nomi sites.
“Site operators will let us know if they experience significant delays and we will supplement staff at occupied sites with mobile equipment,” Hudachko said. TestUtah sites will no longer accept appointments starting this weekend, which will make all of their sites the first to arrive and the first to serve.
UDOH and Nomi are trying to hire staff to create more test sites, he added.
“Right now we have a significant number of test sites,” Hudachko said, referring to the driving sites that health systems opened before the pandemic, but which were discontinued as case counts fell in Spring.
The longest response times for tests processed in the lab have been reported by TestUtah, whose average response time last week began to exceed two days, according to UDOH data.
Nomi’s average test processing time this summer has consistently been the longest of Utah’s five major lab groups, though it also handled fewer tests than other vendors.
Sometimes that meant a few extra hours on average. But compared to the state lab, TestUtah’s average response time has often meant almost a full day more waiting for results.
While test providers have increased in recent weeks for providers statewide in recent weeks, none have increased more than in TestUtah, which now handles more tests than any other provider except Intermountain Healthcare.
ARUP is processing TestUtah testing. But response times for other vendors, which had been similar to those at TestUtah, dropped sharply as capacity increased last week, reaching just over a day of processing on Sept. 5. Meanwhile, TestUtah response times have remained stable at around two days; it is unclear whether delays in transporting samples or in laboratory work may occur.
“There are two metrics we examine: one is efficiency at the test site and the other is efficiency at response time,” said Tom Hudachko, a spokesman for UDOH.
Get in line
But there have also been some problems at the sites themselves.
At Holladay TestUtah site, Millcreek resident Peter Alt said he arrived to find a line of about 100 cars at idle.
“Two employees worked hard, but the process was super inefficient and once in line, there was no way to escape,” Alt said. “I would have been rescued, but there was no way out.”
When a test site opened Wednesday afternoon near Highland High School, a line of cars quickly retreated toward the school building, where confused drivers struggled to find the queue in the middle of cars. who arrived to pick up the students. One patient ran across the block to confirm that the line was actually for a test site, as there were no signs.
Jayden Petter lined up for what was his second attempt at a try. He joined his family Tuesday morning at Holladay’s site and took the test after about an hour of waiting, he said. But while his father and brother had gotten their results when they returned home, Jayden’s account was empty.
“I called them this morning and they told me I didn’t catch it,” he said with a laugh. “I guess they lost results.”
Salt Lake City resident Monica Hoffmann waited about 20 minutes when she was halfway down the same line. She said she was very grateful to find evidence near her home, after being alerted to a possible exposure by a silent COVID tracking app she installed on her phone at the start of the pandemic.
“All the other places: they’re all booked. I tried CVS, Walgreens, I called the U.” Hoffmann said. “It’s hard to get a date right now.”
Biden said his administration will expand the number of retail pharmacies where people can do free trials through the Department of Health and Human Services to 10,000 locations. It will also send 25 million free kits to 1,400 community health centers and hundreds of food banks across the country, he said, “so that all Americans, regardless of their income, can access free and convenient trials.”
– Reporter Sean P. Means contributed to this story.