LANSING, Mich. — Michigan is pushing through a major influx of new COVID-19 cases and the demand for testing is creating long wait times.
At Sparrow's Frandor drive thru testing location, some people are waiting upwards of three hours to get swabbed.
“We’ve been arriving at 5:30 in the morning to find up to 60 cars in line every morning and it just doesn’t stop all day long," said Elizabeth Reust, a lab manager with Sparrow Health.
She estimates that the Frandor location sees about a thousand cars come through each day.
“Unfortunately some people have been waiting up to two and a half to three hours," Reust said.
As of Wednesday, Michigan reported well over 44,000 new cases of COVID-19 over the last three days, more than 14,000 new cases per day.
Although there are long wait times at Sparrow's Frandor testing location, there are other testing locations in the area.
Lansing Urgent Care's eight locations offer rapid and PCR tests, and MSU offers testing at Spartan Stadium. As of Wednesday, MSU's facility showed a significant number of appointments available through the end of the week.
"COVID testing around town there are kind of long wait times no matter where you go. There are quite a few centers doing rapid tests but not enough for the demand given how prevalent Omicron is right now in the area," said Sarah Warren, the lead physician's assistant at Lansing Urgent Care.
Warren says that there are wait times to get tested for COVID at all of the Lansing Urgent Cares, but it's certainly not impossible to get tested.
"We're usually full for the next day so people who are getting appointment slots you may get lucky but a lot of times people are scheduling an appointment slot for 36 hours from when they actually make the appointment. But we're still seeing walk ins," she said.
Once the test is completed, even if you didn't get tested at a Sparrow location, chances are Sparrow Labs are doing the analysis.
“We're doing about two thousand tests a day here at Sparrow. I feel like that is the demand in our area. So hopefully we can get people to answer they need and we'll somehow come to an end to this," Reust said.
The wait time to get your results back from Sparrow is about 24 to 48 hours.
Want to see more local news? Visit the FOX47News Website.
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere.
Sign up for newsletters emailed to your inbox.
Select from these options: Neighborhood News, Breaking News, Severe Weather, School Closings, Daily Headlines, and Daily Forecasts.
