Long queues and closed clinics: Australians with positive rapid antigen tests abandon PCRs
People testing positive to Covid using rapid antigen tests are being turned away from, or are giving up on, getting a PCR test, as the New South Wales government warns that the actual number of Covid cases could be much higher than the 11,201 reported on Wednesday.
Wait times for testing clinics have ballooned across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.
Guardian Australia has spoken to people who have developed Covid symptoms after being in contact with a confirmed positive case, or who have a positive rapid antigen test, who have been trying for several days to get a PCR test but have been turned away.
Others were tested before Christmas but are still waiting on their result.
Long queues result in wait times of several hours. Some people had been turned away half an hour after a testing site opened because it was over capacity. At others people camped out overnight to ensure they were at the top of the queue.
Amy McNeilage and her mother both tested positive on a rapid antigen test earlier this week and were finally able to get a PCR test on Wednesday, after driving an hour from north-west Sydney to Lithgow.
McNeilage’s mother was turned away from three testing sites on Tuesday – Castle Hill, Rouse Hill and Penrith. They checked the NSW Health website and saw that Hawkesbury showgrounds would be open from 8am, so got up early and joined the queue at 6.15am.
The website later marked it as closed. McNeilage and her partner need official confirmation from a PCR test in order to return to their home in Canberra, and to show their employers why they need time off work. They will quarantine in Sydney until cleared to travel.
“I just feel incredibly grateful that I am vaccinated because I have been quite unwell, more unwell than I expected to be with being double vaccinated,” McNeilage says. “I hate to think what sort of shape I would be in if I had not been vaccinated.”
Officials in three states – Victoria, South Australia and NSW – have said testing capacity should be reserved for people who have symptoms or have returned a positive rapid antigen test (RAT).
The NSW government has blamed the surging testing queues on “tourism testing,” mainly people travelling to Queensland who are required to show a negative PCR test.
NSW Health sent texts to people who completed a PCR on Wednesday warning that the wait for results would be 72 hours.
In a statement, it said it was taking steps to “limit testing that is not clinically urgent”, prioritising people who have Covid symptoms or a positive rapid antigen test, are a household contact, or have been in a high transmission venue.
Karen Lang spent Christmas at home with her partner, her adult son and daughter, and her daughter’s boyfriend, suffering from severe flu-like symptoms from what she assumes is Covid. Her son was identified as a close contact and began to feel unwell on 19 December. He tested positive on 20 December, Lang and her daughter tested negative.
Lang and her daughter then began to feel unwell, so they went to get tested again on 23 December. They still have not received a result. Lang’s partner, who got tested on 24 December, also has not received a result. Her daughter’s boyfriend, who also tested on the 24th, received a negative test result back five days later.
Lang and her partner are booked to have their booster shots next week, but don’t know whether to keep the booking. If they have had Covid, they should not get the shot for another six months. But if their long-delayed PCR test comes back negative, they should get the shot. “So what do we do?”
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Some, like Michael Banford, returned a positive rapid antigen test, looked at the queues for PCR tests, and decided not to get tested at all.
Banford began to feel slightly off early last week, and returned two positive rapid antigen tests. It’s now 10 days since his symptoms first appeared and the 53-year-old, who was double vaccinated with AstraZeneca, said he was feeling better. He will take a few more rapid antigen tests before leaving isolation.
The NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said that people who are just seeking a screening test should use a rapid antigen test not a PCR test, but that people who test positive on a rapid antigen test, or who have symptoms, should still get a PCR test.
She went on to say the very high rate of positive test results – currently above 5% – meant the testing clinics were “probably not getting to all of the cases”.
“So there is probably more disease in the community than the numbers reflect.”
The testing queues are slightly shorter in Victoria, with the average result time hovering around two days.
Laura Strehlau has taken her family for five PCR tests since 17 December, when her eight-year-old son was identified as a close contact. He tested positive, followed by her six-year-old, and then, yesterday, her four-year-old. So far, Strehlau herself has not tested positive.
The longest they have waited for a test result is five days, the shortest eight hours – from a small testing clinic at Healesville. They have also been screening with rapid antigen tests, but Strehlau says expecting people to rely on the increasingly expensive tests was unfair.
“I am a single mum, I have had to go into my savings to buy them,” she says. “They are hard to get and they are expensive, it’s the toilet paper of 2021.”