Queues of up to eight hours for PCR testing in New South Wales have led to calls to standardise interstate testing requirements and make rapid antigen tests the norm.
The NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard, blamed interstate travel requirements for a significant increase in demand on an already overwhelmed system and the lengthy delays.
Hazzard accused the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, of “passive-aggressive stupidity” over the issue.
Wait times had blown out to the point the test results were no longer relevant, Hazzard said on Tuesday.
“It is taking up to four days, sometimes five days, to get test results.
“They might have been negative on day one when they had their test, but they could well be positive on day four or day five when they cross the border.
“So on all fronts, there is no logic in continuing (this).”
Testing delays in NSW, Victoria and the ACT were expected to continue until at least New Year’s Eve.
Melbourne resident Gabriela, who did not want her last name used, said she waited six hours for a test on Tuesday morning.
“They were supposed to open the testing site at nine so I got there 7.15. As I was in line, one nurse came out at 8.10 and put a line suspended poster 100 metres behind me,” she told Guardian Australia.
Gabriela said there was a woman in line standing up and breastfeeding as they waited for their tests.
“There were two women in the line who told her they would keep her place if she wanted to sit down and breastfeed.
“There were a couple of people with kids, they were well behaved, they all deserve gold stars, but it feels so unnecessary at this point.
“Is this working for anyone?”
Been waiting 2 hours for PCR. Line still blocks long. Niece who has fever and vomiting went to a different testing site and was too sick to wait to get swabbed. This isn’t working.
— Antoinette Lattouf (@antoinette_news) December 27, 2021
Palaszczuk needs to show some empathy and change her travel test rules.
Gabriela said the people around her in the line did not have symptoms, and most were having tests so they could travel.
“We’ve got rapid antigen tests, we need to start using them. I have one at home, I could have easily done one.”
In NSW, Dr Effie Karageorgos said she had encountered testing lines several kilometres long.
“In Sydney right now – testing lines are kms long and there isn’t a rapid antigen test to be found in chemists and other stores (have been driving around and calling trying to find some this morning for my parents in case they need),” she tweeted.
In Victoria, at least one resident, who did not want to be named, chose to ignore the mandatory isolation over Christmas after waiting four days to get her test result back.
“On Wednesday night I found out a colleague had Covid, so everyone who worked with her had to get a test,” she said.
The couple waited four days to receive their negative results. After talking to their family, they decided to go to her parent’s house for Christmas.
“The rapid test should be free and we should be able to do that if we have no symptoms,” she said.
Prof Adrian Esterman from the University of South Australia said the long lines created problems.
“We’re getting a lot of people infectious in the community because they’re not willing to wait,” Esterman said.
“The second issue is that all of our modelling assumes testing and contact tracing are working well, and they’re not.
“So our modelling isn’t accurate and we are getting far more cases than we expected.”
On Sunday the South Australian government moved to rapid antigen testing for interstate travellers, but the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, was standing firm, saying the PCR testing requirement would not be reconsidered until 1 January.
Esterman said all interstate travel should require a rapid antigen test instead of a PCR, to release some pressure from the system.
The chaos had resulted in calls to disregard testing altogether, especially after Hazzard said on Sunday that everyone in the state “at some point will get Omicron”.
But Esterman said that was “a gross exaggeration” and to save lives the testing system, especially for healthcare workers and those people who were symptomatic, still needed to be in place.
“The reason why we still need it is to say if people are infected. The rapid antigen test is good, just not as accurate – you have to have the right tool for the right job,” Esterman said.
“If you’ve got an aged care worker and they’ve got symptoms you want to know for sure if they’re infected or not. The PCR is test is by far the best way in certain situations.”
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A NSW Health spokesperson said it was constantly monitoring demand for testing alongside private testing labs.
“Testing capacity in NSW is currently under enormous pressure … NSW has requested that the requirements for PCR testing by other states be terminated and, where necessary, substituted by a rapid antigen test.”
Hazzard said rapid antigen tests were “absolutely” the way forward in the pandemic.
“We need to look seriously, very seriously, at all these pressures on PCR testing,” he said. “NSW by far does the most PCR testing in the country … two years ago we thought we were doing well when we were doing 40,000 tests a day.”
The state has been averaging 132,240 Covid tests a day in the past week, peaking at 164,144 on Christmas Eve. At the same time, the test positivity rate has risen beyond 6%.
Prior to Omicron, NSW was also averaging about 130,000 tests a day in September, during the Delta wave of the virus when the positivity rate hovered at about 1%. Testing peaked at 173,913 tests at the beginning of the month.
At the end of August, the state was recording an average in excess of 140,000 Covid tests on some days.
Private testing clinics were seeing similar pressures with wait times in excess of 100 hours in some instances.
An automated voice message on 4Cyte’s Covid hotline was asking patients to hang up and call back later if they had waited less than 72 hours for a test result, while Histopath’s contact line automatically terminated calls due to “unprecedented volumes”.
Laverty’s contact number connected patients with a recorded message – “Due to unprecedented demand NSW Health says not to call for test results until after 72 hours” – and then hung up automatically.
All three clinics were approached for comment.