COVID-19 testing centers see increase in lines after holidays

Nicole Merz, Director of Clinical Research at WildHealth, says its testing locations have been booked up this week.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – It’s the end of the holiday season, people are going back to work, and Fayette County Public Schools are back in session. With life returning to normal after the holidays, people are wanting to get those COVID-19 tests.

According to WildHealth Director of Clinical Research Nicole Merz, the past few days have been some of the busiest days she’s seen.

“We were expecting our biggest week to be before Christmas and that was our biggest week as far as 2021 goes. And now since Sunday, we’ve maxed out all of our appointments. Our communities are over 3,900 appointments a day, and we also do testing for UK employees and staff so we’ve had well over 4,000 appointments since Sunday,” said Merz.

Just down the road at Lexington Urgent Care on Nicholasville Road, M.A. Ladonna Shalash says the center has seen the same trend.

“Everyone wants a test. We’ve been booked up for days. Everywhere is booked up. This is our second busiest location, our busiest location saw 140 people yesterday, and 33 of those cases tested were positive,” said Shalash.

Shalash says the holidays, coupled with the new, highly contagious Omicron variant, have caused people to want to get tested.

“I think the holidays played a role, everybody’s getting together, and the Omicron variant is pretty contagious, though the symptoms are more mild than the other variants,” said Shalash.

Merz adds that many of the people she and her team have tested have mentioned their concern to protect not just themselves, but others.

“I’ve had people tell me they’re just concerned because they’re going back to work where they work with older folks, or they know some people who are immunocompromised, and they just want to be sure they’re protecting those that are around them,” said Merz.

Merz says she thinks most of the positive cases she’s seen recently are the Omicron variant, although she says neither the PCR or rapid COVID-19 tests detect specific variants.

“Our positivity rate is up to 18 percent. Last week we did about 25,000 tests total in and around the Lexington area. We don’t know for sure the numbers for Omicron in Kentucky, but we can speculate because of the fact that the U.S. is about 59 percent, so when we look at those we know that’s what we’re seeing at this point,” said Merz.

Merz says she recommends booking a test at least a day in advance as testing centers are maxing out bookings for each day.