FORT WORTH, Texas — The line of cars filled with people waiting for a COVID-19 test stretched on for nearly two miles.
On Tuesday, the Stockyards COVID testing site along 28th St. and Decatur Avenue in Fort Worth had another busy day following the holiday weekend.
Crystal Davis, the manager who runs the 24-hour testing site said the long lines have been non-stop since the day before Christmas.
“We are tired,” Davis said.
On Tuesday, Davis told WFAA that people started lining up as early as 4:30 a.m. Davis said the average wait time over the past couple of days has been anywhere between three to five hours, but on Tuesday, some people waited up to six hours.
The wait was so long, some cars overheated on the side of the road and had to get towed away.
“We cannot keep staffing on site. My testers are working 12-15 hour shifts,” Davis said.
They’re testing nearly 500 people a day, a sharp increase from a couple of months ago, when Davis’s site was only testing between 50-100 people daily.
“We’ve seen a very high spike in positive cases,” Davis said.
Davis said on average, about 25% of tests at her site were positive in recent days.
Tuesday morning, Tarrant County Public Health raised the COVID-19 community spread level back to "high." Since November, it has been back and forth from "substantial" to "high." Dallas County raised the threat level back to red later Tuesday night.
The increased demand for testing during the holidays led Tarrant County Public Health to expand testing availability. Vinny Taneja, Director of Tarrant County Public Health told WFAA that the demand over the weekend led them to decide it was time to expand.
“We’re going back up to high level of community spread today, cause of the data that came in over the weekend,” Taneja said.
The latest data shows the county’s positivity rate was 18.3% as of Dec. 25th, more than double from around 7% during the first week of December.
Beginning on Wednesday, three Tarrant County Public Health testing sites will expand availability by operating seven days a week. The three locations include:
Ben Thanh Market
1818 E Pioneer Parkway Ste., 100
Arlington, TX 76010
Monday to Friday: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Northeast Annex
837 Brown Trail
Bedford, TX 76022
Wednesday to Friday: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Resource Connection – Parking Lot D
1500 Circle Drive
Fort Worth, TX 76119
Wednesday to Friday: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Mariana Duke took her mom to the rapid testing side on Decatur Avenue on Tuesday after the 57-year-old experienced symptoms. They waited more than three hours for a test.
“I’m hungry, haven’t had breakfast, we don’t have any water, we don’t have anything,” Duke said. “We did try to get an at-home test, we called all the Walgreens around, we didn’t find any.”
Davis has been operating the free site on Decatur Avenue for more than a year. It’s open seven days a week and offers both PCR tests and rapid Antigen tests.
Taneja said the county has been closing monitoring the demand for testing and has been prepared to quickly expand.
“Current wait times are not long and results have been expected to be given within 24-48 hours,” Taneja said.