Concerns growing over long waits for coronavirus test results in Georgia

ATLANTA - Thousands of people across the metro Atlanta area are awaiting their COVID-19 test results.

Many of them waited in long drive-through lines just to take one and jumped through hoops to schedule an appointment.

The Georgia Department of Public Health said results are expected within 36 hours to 10 days.

FOX 5’s Alex Whittler spoke to a woman who said she was tested more than two weeks ago and still doesn’t know whether she’s had the virus or not. The woman asked not to be shown on camera or to be named, as she’s still awaiting test results and wants to maintain a sense of privacy.

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The woman said she’s worried the results are taking so long that by the time she receives them, they won't matter.

"I know the nurses and everything, it’s not what they’re doing, it would be nice to know the results sooner," she said.

The woman wanted a coronavirus test before a road trip to visit her grandmother.

"I was trying to go the weekend after I got tested, so two weekends ago," she said.

She waited in the drive-through line at Piedmont Health Care’s Virginia-Highland location.

"It took about an hour to get to the front of the line," she said,

She’s yet to see her grandmother and has instead spent the past several days quarantined alone, not showing any symptoms, but unsure if she was asymptomatic.

"They told me they’re a week or two behind. It’s also been two weeks," she said.

Know how the COVID-19 outbreak is impacting Georgia

Earlier this month, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tested positive for the coronavirus.

She also had no symptoms and posted to social media, saying she would have been able to prevent the spread in her home had she known she had the virus sooner.

Monday, Governor Brian Kemp announced a new partnership with the GDPH that will “boost” testing capacity and supply 10,000 tests daily.

The chief operating officer of that partnership said test results should take 48 hours.

The GDPH said it has nothing to do with the testing done at Piedmont Health Care locations like the one at which the woman was tested.

She said she’s mentally preparing to get tested again, no matter what the results from her first test are.

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