I need a test, but where do I get it?

Two days before our family Christmas gathering, my sister called me to ask how to find a COVID-19 rapid test site. My niece was coughing and she wanted to make sure it was not the coronavirus before we got together.

By the time she called, my sister had already come out empty-handed from visits to two local pharmacies where at-home test kits were sold out. She also checked Amazon, but there was no next-day delivery or pickup for test kits. They would not arrive until the new year. She tried to schedule a test appointment with local pharmacies, but none was available until a week later.

I began developing a cough with a headache the day after Christmas. However, no walk-in test site was open over the Christmas weekend. Short of an emergency room visit, no test was available in the area.

On Monday morning I drove to the test site where I did my first rapid test last month. When I went in at 8 am, a line of more than 20 masked people snaked around the parking lot. The little tin room was shut.

I waited for 20 minutes, during which a few cars continued to pull in and out. Were they out of test kits so it could not open? Or were the staff simply running late? The woman next to me called the phone number posted at the site, but only got an answering machine.

So I left and drove to another test site nearby, but it was also shut. I gave up and went home.

I headed out again at 10 am, but the first rapid test site was still closed. The second site was open with about 40 people in line. It offered no rapid tests, and results would not be available until 24 to 48 hours later. Still, this was my fastest available option without an emergency room visit.

Two hours later I finally got to the front of the line and had my swab kit.

Empty shelves and long lines at test sites are a common occurrence across the United States. It seems that the country has never been well-prepared when it comes to tests since the pandemic began.

When vaccines proved to be effective, rapid testing again took a backseat. As a result, Abbott, one of the major COVID-19 antigen rapid test makers in the US, laid off 400 workers in the summer. A couple of months later, Abbott rushed to rehire workers and frantically shored up resources to make test kits amid the surge of the Delta variant.

The administration of President Joe Biden got it right when it allocated more than $2 billion to accelerate the production of rapid tests and an additional $1 billion in procuring at-home tests.

However, it failed to act quickly. It should have known what was coming. The world was alerted of Omicron about a month ago. It was known that the new variant is a much more infectious strain.

The writer is a reporter of China Daily based in Houston.