President Joe Biden promised to distribute hundreds of millions of free COVID-19 tests and open more testing points to combat the surge of infections, but for those who want to find out if they are infected before the outbreak begins, it’s more important. The intensity will not come in time. Holiday.

Americans have been looking for scarce home tests in pharmacies or waiting for hours in cold temperatures in testing facilities across the country.

Jordan Thomas, who waited nearly four hours for the test in Brooklyn, New York this week, said: “Not everyone can take a three-hour leave for the test, but it feels like this is the only thing we can do.” City.

In Atlanta, home tests at the pharmacy ran out and the police closed the checkpoints because of traffic jams for half a mile or more. A drive-through test site in Columbia, South Carolina, has been queuing faster for several months than the nearby Chick-fil-A restaurant waiting an hour or more before Christmas. The staff warned that the results may take longer than the usual 24 to 36 hours.

There are many factors driving the surge in demand for testing, including families seeking to ensure that holiday gatherings are safe, and people needing to prove that they are not infected with the virus while traveling, working, or going to school. Adding to the stress is the super-infectious variant of omicron, which has a multiplier effect on the number of people seeking testing after contact with an infected person.

In the United States, an average of about 149,000 people are infected every day, up from 75,000 people every day in early November.

Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, followed up COVID-19 testing during the pandemic. He said: “The increase in infections is very dramatic.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even if people have no symptoms and have not been exposed to the virus, testing can help ensure the safety of gatherings.

“Take a test before you gather,” said Dr. Rochelle Varensky, the agency’s director, this week, because omicron caused a surge in cases before the holidays.

However, in order to follow the guidelines and meet the requirements of some employers and schools, testing capabilities in many places are already very tight.

Detjon Bushgjokaj was one of hundreds of people seeking testing in Everett, Massachusetts, north of Boston. His 6-year-old daughter has not been vaccinated and tested positive after having a fever. He waited for about 90 minutes.

“As soon as my wife called, I came here after get off work. I work with many people in different places, so I need to make sure,” said Bushgjokaj, who was vaccinated. He said his daughter’s illness added uncertainty to their vacation.

In New York City, pharmacies posted signs reminding customers that their test kits were sold out. At some test sites, the lines are wrapped around the block, and some people say that the results may take three to four days.

For the results of the second day, a website listed a price of $150. For results within two hours, the price is $389.

Mara Aspinall, who teaches biomedical diagnosis at Arizona State University and serves on the OraSure board of COVID-19, said that although the technology to process PCR laboratory testing takes less than a day, testing sites and laboratories face the same problems as many other companies. The staffing problem. Test manufacturer.

Manufacturers are working hard to increase supply. Abbott stated that its popular BinaxNOW test has seen “unprecedented demand” and plans to expand production in January from more than 50 million this month to 70 million. The company said it could further increase production in the next few months.

At the same time, Walgreens said it restricts people from buying four boxes at a time in stores and online. CVS stated that it restricts people from buying six kits at a time.

In New York City, officials plan to provide rapid home testing to people who wait for a long time at the test site to help ease demand. But the city also has trouble ensuring the safety of the tests.

Biden announced on Tuesday that the federal government will begin mailing 500 million free rapid test kits directly to Americans for the first time in January. Details have not been announced, but officials said that people will be able to use a new website to order their tests, which will be mailed to them for free.

The government will use the National Defense Production Law to help create more tests. The new federal test site will also be established in New York starting this week.

These changes were made after public health experts urged U.S. officials to make tests more accessible for months. They pointed out that countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany had distributed billions of tests to the public and recommended that people take self-examination twice a week. Detection.

Experts say that the latest efforts are still not enough to allow all Americans to test at this speed. According to the non-profit organization Caesars Family Foundation, every person 12 years of age and older in the United States needs to undergo 2.3 billion tests per month to do this.

The availability of tests varies across the country.

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This week, at a children’s day camp operating in a city in Fort Collins, Colorado, you can get a kit of rapid test reagents for free. The staff tells parents that they can take as much as they need.

Nevertheless, Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territory Health Officials, pointed out that after the holidays, the demand for testing will only increase, and people will wonder if their travels and gatherings are causing infection.

Aspinall said that as people hope to resume activities they abandoned during the pandemic, high demand may continue until 2022.

“Pandemic fatigue has become,’I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it.’ Testing provides this knowledge and power,” she said.