![]() Online and in stores, major retailers are sold out of the popular at-home tests, and medical supply vendors can’t find enough rapid test kits for schools, shelters, nursing homes, employers and other groups. Voit managed to find an online supplier and ordered 70 kits for the shelter, but they aren’t coming anytime soon: The delivery date is a month out. “If a resident really needs a test, we can send them there,” Voit said, “but the three to five days is tough to wait.” ![]() ![]() Even a single day’s wait could fuel an outbreak among the shelter’s 23 adults and children. “Otherwise it could have taken three to five days to get those results and many more families could have gotten sick.”Ī nearby clinic offers COVID-19 tests, but only PCR tests, which usually take several days for results. “Because we had those kits on hand, we were able to send them immediately to the isolation and quarantine hotel the county runs,” she said. Voit’s team used the rapid tests on the whole family. Three weeks ago, a child living at the shelter was sent home from school after a classmate contracted COVID-19. “We ran into the same issue at the beginning of the pandemic when we were trying to buy Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer,” said Voit, the shelter’s program director. The local Walgreens and Costco have started limiting sales to one per customer. They’ve had some infection scares, and the antigen tests - which return results in minutes - have been crucial to curbing the virus in the family shelter.īut in recent weeks, the staff has struggled to purchase enough rapid test kits. Sarah Voit likes to keep 10 to 15 rapid test kits on hand in case any of the residents of the Family Emergency Shelter Coalition in Hayward need to be tested for COVID-19. Californians seeking same-day COVID-19 tests for sick kids, infection scares or employers are finding empty shelves and long delays, which could fuel outbreaks.
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