Ahmed Aboulenein, Carl O’Donnell

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON – An increase in U.S.COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant of the Omicron virus is exceeding testing capacity in areas high in infection like New York City, in part because there are fewer open sites and staff shortages in healthcare, as well as a lack of test facilities, according to more than a dozen interviews with officials, testmakers, and health professionals.

They say that some centers have had to close, like CityMD in New York. This is due to the lack of employees, which has caused long queues at other locations. This is due to a shortage of rapid at-home tests that can be done in pharmacies, which has gotten worse in the hardest hit regions.

In the United States, the Omicron virus variant is the most prevalent coronavirus strain. It has been infected with high levels for the last 10 days. U.S. infections have doubled since early November to a seven-day average of more than 150,000 cases per day, according to a Reuters tally https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/united-states. A national lab said that testing had increased 30% in the week prior. States such as Texas, Ohio, and Texas where the number of infections is rising are also reporting that their ability to cope with increased demand was difficult.

Dr. John D’Angelo is the head of emergency medicine at Northwell Health. This health system in New York has a problem with access. The demand for fast testing drives long lines at testing facilities.

According to XpresCheck spokesperson, COVID-19 testing is provided at eleven U.S. airports. This has led to longer waiting times and worsened infection rates.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States is experiencing a shortage of workers in all industries. There are approximately 11 million jobs that remain unfilled.

According to October federal data about healthcare and social services, approximately 8.3% of vacant jobs were found. That’s 1.5 percentage points more than the overall rate.

“Our major one-two punch, Dr. Peter Hotez from Baylor College of Medicine said that an Omicron surge…with unprecedented depletion of health care workers is our big one-two punch.”

According to current models of how the virus spreads, testing demand is likely to rise until January according, Mark Stevenson chief operations officer, Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE :), a major testmaker.

Graphics https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/EMPLOYMENT/dwvkrzxeqpm/chart.png

Since September, the White House invested $3Billion to increase U.S. rapid home testing production by 200,000,000 per month.

Reuters was told by several test producers that they’ve more than doubled their capacity over the past months, allowing them to put tens of thousands more products on the market every month.

This would be far less than the number of quick at-home testing required by health professionals for country’s estimated 330 million inhabitants.

On Tuesday, the White House announced that it would open test centers all across America. The first one will be in New York City. The White House also announced that 500 million quick at-home testing will be offered to customers starting in January.

Sam Scarpino is the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute’s managing director for pathogen surveillance.

Graphics https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/EMPLOYMENT/dwpkrzxzjvm/chart.png

Thermo Fisher stated it plans to increase its COVID-19 supply, which was around 5,000,000 per week in Oct. and will reach 20 million by end of year. Quidel Corp. (NASDAQ) says that it increased its monthly test production by around 70,000,000, an increase of 20 million this year.

InBios International is one of eleven FDA-approved home testing companies. It expects to start shipping up to 5,000,000 tests per month starting January. Experts are concerned that 500 million quick tests purchased by the White House could cause shortages in some retail outlets and certain healthcare providers.

According to the Kaiser Health Foundation, tests for four home COVID-19 were only available 73% of time at the six largest U.S. online stores in November compared with 95% in September.

Lindsey Dawson is an associate director for healthcare policy at Kaiser Family Foundation. She stated that “test manufacturers cannot only make a finite amount of tests.”

It’ll be interesting to see whether what’s left…is enough to allow consumers to take home tests from their community health centers or drugstores.