While the current CDC recommendation is that anyone with COVID-19 symptoms — a fever, dry cough and shortness of breath — or anyone with exposure to someone with the virus can be tested, many are finding out receiving a test isn’t that easy.
One Politico reporter, Andy Carvin, shared his experience trying to get a test. He says that after telling his general practitioner he was exhibiting symptoms, medical personnel at the ER spent 11 hours testing for every other possible illness before agreeing to test Carvin for the novel coronavirus.
He heard back 48 hours later. There had been an error with his testing.
Carvin didn’t receive his results — which were thankfully negative — for seven days.
Why is it difficult to get a COVID-19 test?
When the virus first started to spread in the United States government officials decided that instead of using the World Health Organization test, they would use the new CDC test, which was less effective and producing the new test slowed down production, Axios reports.
The Food and Drug Administration’s emergency authorization regulations have delayed testing in the United States for weeks, too, according to The Atlantic.
Currently, the total number of COVID-19 tests available for the entire country is only 22,000 tests per day, according to WIRED,
What are COVID-19 tests like?
Collecting the necessary samples for the test is actually quite simple. A patient simply has to go and be swabbed in the back of the nose, according to USA Today.
If you’ve ever been tested for the flu, getting tested for novel coronavirus will feel quite familiar, NBC12 reports.
Some physicians will also swab the back of the throat — much like a strep test — to get an additional sample, reports Fox40.
In order to detect the virus, lab technicians use polymerase chain reactions, which is part of why getting results takea a while. The samples must be processed at a professional lab and cannot be done at a clinic or house, Wired reports.
Northwell Health Labs in Lake Success, New York, can process results in just two hours, but is currently only processing 75 tests a day.
The lab is working with the FDA towards processing 1,000 COVID-19 tests per day, Business Insider reports.