Is testing this difficult everywhere?

My kids had this one as well (along with a strep test). I wanted them to be tested for Covid and strep, but one of the kids had influenza instead. That was at the clinic but I think I could have gotten them tested for just Covid there as well (in a separate area of the clinic).

I’m on a local (Bay Area) vaccine hunter FB page which is now helping find tests. People are talking about gopuff.com and having tests delivered to their door in 30 minutes. Not sure if this is by you-it’s a division of BevMo. Have not used, but seeing many people recommend this.

The latest guidelines is that you do not need to quarantine after exposure if you are fully vaccinated (including booster) unless you are showing symptoms. You should wear a mask for 10 days when around others, and get tested around day 5. 

Testing everyday from 7am to 7pm at one location in the city. I haven’t been, so I don’t know if there are lines.

I haven’t seen an OTC test to buy in months. That’s definitely not ideal.

Not developing new.symptoms, but still having them and yes I have had repeated exposures. On Monday from one teacher. Tuesday another teacher and one student. Thursday 2 different students. Only 2 kids I work with can and are vaxxed. The rest are too young.
I think it is safe to assume more kids in my class have COVID but are not being tested due to lack of tests or parents just not testing. We had one child test twice negative and on Wednesday show up positive even though they had been sick for several days already.
I am just saying your comment about anyone with symptoms staying home and assuming they have COVID is not feasible. I would be quarantined from now until allergy season is over.
And Frankly since I had 2 exposures on Thursday I could still have COVID and not know it since They say you shouldn't tested until 3 days after exposure, so technically I should get tested tomorrow or Monday but there aren't any tests until the 15th.

Yes


And where I live the reason is that people are testing like crazy because they want confirmation they do not have covid. They are buying up home tests seemingly for this reason and the antigen tests are only designed for symptomatic testing so my friend who is testing herself daily because her son was positive last week is just wasting tests.

I have covid symptoms right now. I tried Walgreens, CVS, and Kroger. No tests until Wednesday or Thursday.
I did finally get into an Urgent Care this morning that had them. It was walk-in and I had to wait an hour.

When I go to my vet they have us wait in our cars and they come out to the car to get the animal. When I went to CVS at the beginning of the epidemic they had all of these precautions in place and we stayed in our car.

When I went to the Urgent Care they had us all wait in a waiting room with no social distancing. I tried my best to stay away from everyone else but it was impossible to get that far away from anyone. It was ridiculous.

I live in the middle of nowhere. The at home tests had been plentiful in Walgreens and Walmart. I needed to get my daughter a test after a close contact of hers was positive and daughter developed symptoms. Her peds office doesn’t offer them. I could not find any at home tests anywhere in a 20 mile radius and all of the appointments for drive through testing were several days out. The only option was an expensive urgent care or walk in appointment. We opted to just treat her like she was positive and quarantine appropriately. Her symptoms have remained fairly mild or else I would have taken her to one of the walk in options.

I am shocked because just last week there were rows and rows of those tests at Walgreens.

What I don’t like is the lack of clarity surrounding all of it. My kid was exposed at school, in a class where they take off their masks to have a snack, by the kid who sits directly in front of her and before kids her age could be vaccinated. I kept her home from school for three days only due to the masking situation and the proximity of her to the kid who was out sick. I called our clinic on that Monday and they couldn’t get her in until the following day and we didn’t get the test results back until Wednesday afternoon. She was negative so she went back to school for the rest of the week.

Later, the school said they had tests they could send home with the kids, so after we got another notice that she might have been exposed we had her stop into the office to get one to bring home. She didn’t have any symptoms, so we just kept it on hand. The bad thing though is that the place that does the live monitoring for the at home tests from school is only available between like 8:00-5:00 I think. Which is pretty stupid because if you needed to test your kid before school, that’s not an option if their bus comes at 7:00 am. Oh, and the school test kits have to be dropped back off in the office *at school* where they are only collected on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you would end up waiting another day or two after that for the results, and by then your kid has been out of school for the better part of a week even if they’re not sick. Did I mention that kids who are kept home while waiting on a test have almost no online access to their schoolwork for those days and will then have to work with each of their seven teachers to make up whatever they missed? Super fun times there.

The same is similar for the local testing places. They don’t even open until 11:00 am, so if I wanted to take my kid in for a same day rapid test, between waiting until they open and then waiting in line for the test, she would still end up missing a whole day of school even if she turned out to be negative.

My other issue with the local rapid testing places is that nowhere online does it say you can just show up as a walk in and wait in line for a test. They all say you need to make an appointment, but when you look into doing that they are all taking appointments for 2-3 days out. Since we’re all vaxxed and DH and I are boosted, what would be the point of doing it then if you thought you needed a test today? By the time you make the appointment, go take the test and then wait for the results, it would be past the new five day quarantine timeframe. Since I always mask up anywhere in public anyway, it all seems somewhat pointless if you can’t get a rapid test or a take home test and/or be able to take it when you think you need to.

I think I finally found information in some obscure place that did say walk-ins can be tested same day at the state sites, but that was only after looking in multiple places for that information on multiple days and multiple websites. Why not just make it easy and tell people they can just come in and get tested if they think they might need to? 🙄

Apparently here you can get a test, you just never get results.

I have one friend who tested 9 days ago and still hasn’t gotten a result and one friend who tested 5 days ago and hasn’t gotten a result.

I have never gotten a covid test and have no idea what to do. My daughter has to get one within 48 hrs. of first day of spring semester. We are 5 hrs. from school and I have no idea how to get an appt. here or on campus. We have to figure out when we can get her to campus, etc. I will call the university tomorrow and get advice. The entire state's universities start the same day so have no idea how they will handle so many tests in 2 days.

We have a drive up testing site at a medical facility near us with scheduled hours. They have a special shed-like place set up in the parking lot so it's heated, electricity, etc. for the staff.

You Drive up, provide your information and details, they look you up and if you've been a patient with the facility before, they label the tube with your info. (I'm not sure what they do if you're not already an established patient). The nurse is gowned, gloved and masked with a face shield, they give you a swab directly from the tube, you swab each of your own nostrils (circle 15 times) and they hold out the tube and you slip it in. You never have to leave your car


The results are posted in your online portal with the clinic they tell you it will be posted within 24-48 hours (I've been test twice and both times the results were available in less than 24 hours; one positive, one negative).

Not in the state of Pennsylvania.  Here is the information provided re. testing: Public testing in Pennsylvania  You will see that it provides information for 7 counties.  There are 67 counties in our state.  It is basically being left up to each county or the free market.  If the larger county has a department of health like Allegheny County, you may be in better luck.  If you are in a more rural county like where I live, it's Rite Aid or Med Express if you can ever get an appointment.  

maryland, Allegheny County has contracted with a private company to run sites in different locations across the county every day.  That information is on the Health Dept. website and they also share it on their FB page.  Mobile and fixed testing sites for the week of January 10