As people return from various holiday activities and students go back to school, many want to do the responsible thing and get tested for COVID to protect others around them. But the problem is, where can you find a test? They’ve run out at drugstores, and across the country, from Oakland, California to Baltimore, Maryland, people are waiting up to four hours in lines to get tested. In Boston, Massachusetts, people waited outside in line in below freezing temperatures. The testing facilities often have no more than a handful of people working to register and carry out the tests for the hundreds of people in line.
Anyone standing in the long lines should have no trouble seeing the solutions. If there aren’t enough tests available, then hire more workers to increase production. If there aren’t enough staff to adequately carry out the operations of taking the tests and reading them in the lab, then hire more workers to take care of what is necessary. If thousands of people are funneled into a single community center to get a test, then open up more locations throughout the city to make things more accessible for people. If the testing services are not accessible for people that have to go to work and school, then set up testing stations at the workplaces and schools.
In year two of this pandemic, we still don’t have adequate testing for the general population. If there was ever evidence of how bankrupt the people who run this society are, here it is. They can’t figure out the most basic things when it comes to the needs of regular working people. Put the workers in charge and we can figure it out.
