The availability of tests that rapidly detect the COVID-19 virus and can be self-administered is quickly dwindling in Pima County, and there’s no guarantee more will be provided any time soon.
Appointments for proctored tests at county-run sites and through local pharmacies are still available but are also becoming scarce. This includes rapid tests as well as so-called PCR tests, which must be sent to a laboratory and take up to 72 hours for results.
A woman leaves the Pima County Health Department Abrams Public Health Center with a take-home COVID test while hundreds of others wait their turn on Tuesday.
The lack of rapid tests is not a local problem but a national one. In December, both the Biden administration and Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, promised millions of rapid tests would be made available nationwide in January.
For now, the county is waiting as the demand for testing of any kind, brought on by the omicron variant and a resulting surge in cases, is exploding.
“The availability of tests is critical,” said Dr. Theresa Cullen, the county’s health department director. “I want community residents to know we are doing everything in our power to make sure people have access to testing.”
New weekly COVID-19 cases here more than doubled recently, rising more than 125% the last week of December.
School districts rely on rapid tests to keep children in school, with testing targeting students who have been directly exposed so those who are negative can remain in school.
Many of the rapid tests the county still has are reserved for the schools, said Louie Valenzuela, the county’s division manager of emergency preparedness.
Cullen said the county has enough tests to continue to support the schools.
She said her department has requested that 20,000 tests be delivered to the county on a weekly basis but there’s no assurance yet that the order will be filled.
The county also asked earlier this week that a FEMA testing site be started here, but hasn’t yet heard back, Valenzuela said.
“Strained is certainly the word I’d use,” he said of testing overall here. “It is a strained system. There’s limited availability of the testing supply itself and there’s limited personnel to administer it.”
Since November, the county has provided about 70,000 rapid tests to the public through pickup sites at public libraries and the Abrams Public Health Center. That supply, which were tests people could administer at home, ran out this week. On Tuesday, the last day the county offered the take-home rapid tests, hundreds of people waited in line at the Abrams center.
No rapid test kits for sale were found by the Arizona Daily Star during a random sampling Friday of seven local pharmacies, and a recorded telephone message at one Walgreens indicated wait times are very long due to calls about whether there are test kits in stock.
The rapid tests, which typically could also be ordered online but are becoming difficult to find there as well, are expensive, typically running around $20 to $24 for packs of two. As the supply dwindles, the prices are increasing and Valenzuela cautioned people to be sure the ones they buy have been approved, since scams are increasing.
The Arizona Department of Health Services orders rapid tests from the federal government based on requests from schools and community health partners, said its spokesman Steve Elliott.
Elliott said he did not have data available on short notice Friday, but that “ordering from federal partners is extremely limited at this time.”
“This is a separate issue from retailers being low or out of rapid tests because of recent demand, and ADHS has no role in this part of it,” he said. “People who test positive for COVID-19 using at-home kits should inform their primary care doctor, for their own well-being and so the positive result will be reported to public health for disease surveillance.”
Pharmacies throughout the Tucson area were running out of COVID-19 tests.
The PCR test — which stands for polymerase chain reaction and is a test to detect genetic material from an organism, such as a virus — is offered at no charge at many local pharmacies and administered, by appointment, as part of drive-thru services, but spots are limited.
The demand for PCR tests also exploded this week and, on Tuesday, Sonora Quest Laboratories in Arizona processed nearly 30,000 PCR tests, the most processed in one day since testing began March 20, 2020.
Some urgent care centers, as well as stand-alone clinics like Rescue Me Wellness, 4601 E. Fifth St., are still offering rapid testing to people experiencing symptoms or who have been recently exposed.
