MILFORD, Del. - Delaware is dealing with an influx of people getting tested before the holidays. Health officials say 47,00 COVID-19 tests were completed last week, and community pop up site visits have increased 40% in the last 10 days.
Olive Wuenstel is just one of thousands of Delawareans getting a COVID test to make sure she’s home safely for the holiday.
“I am supposed to be going to my daughter's in Salisbury for Thanksgiving and I want to make sure I am clear before I go home,” said Wuenstel.
Tuesday’s Curative testing site in Milford is just one in Delaware where testing hours have been extended to 12 hour days.
"Over the last week or so we've been making sure we've identified sites that could do high-throughput events, 1,000 or so a day minimum ... We increased the staff to make sure we were going from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” said AJ Schall, Director of Delaware Emergency Management Agency.
Last Saturday at the Rehoboth Walgreens, cars looped around the parking lot in what may have been hours of waiting for a COVID test.
"Walgreens, DPH clinics, and the service centers are probably not designed for the same high-throughput event. They are designed to be the foundation and consistency in the testing plan,” said Schall.
Starting next month, five more Walgreens testing locations will be added. Beginning Friday, all Walgreens tests will operate on a reservation-based system, in order to cut back on traffic and long wait times.
Statewide, Schall says Curative sites are averaging over 7,000 tests a day. Turn around times for results have gone from 24 hours 28 to 30 hours.
"The testing kits is not what's limiting us right now. It's the lab capacity and logistics,” said Schall.
Dr. Richard Pescatore, Chief Physician at the Delaware Division of Public Health, recommends against gathering this thanksgiving but if you decide to do that, a negative COVID test is not enough to keep your family members safe.
"COVID is a single point in time, while it can give you good information about your level of infection at that point in time, it's not protective. It doesn't respect the fact that you can still develop coronavirus 0 to 14 days after exposure to a positive case,” said Dr. Pescatore.
He says tests are important, but only on top of social distancing, hand washing, and mask wearing.
Schall says people will still get their results under 48 hours, but if you want to receive test results by Thanksgiving Day, you should have gotten tested on Tuesday.
