Slots may become available if cancellations occur, says the GGD
Translated by Thomas Ansell
All three Coronavirus test-locations in Friesland are fully booked up to and including Monday, reports the Leeuwarder Courant. The news has come via the GGD Fryslân’s spokesperson, Marcel de Jong. The three test locations are in Leeuwarden, Drachten, and IJst- but none have any available time-slots, with the closest available being in Groningen on Sunday.
The congestion has come after a new decision to prioritise testing for people that work in the care and education sector resulted in more people than expected registering, says De Jong. “The group of people with priority – care personnel and teachers – is bigger than we thought”, he said. “We had expected about 130 per day, but it’s now about 170, and we had only made time for the 130. We’re now looking to see if the congestion continues, or if it was just a first-day event”, he added. The GGD Fryslân says that it can accommodate about 800 tests per day.
De Jong added that the GGD will adjust its estimates and make sure that the locations can open again, saying that he estimates a full service on Monday. The GGD Fryslân was one of the first in the Netherlands to give priority for care and education personnel- and will use its experiences to help other regions now that the regulation is Netherlands-wide.
Anyone with symptoms is requested to still try and make an appointment, but the waiting time is currently two days. Sometimes more time-slots open up due to no-shows, says the GGD, especially as people cannot currently call to cancel their appointments in advance due to disruption on the GGD’s appointment line.
Due to a shortage of the applicable chemicals required to process tests, the overall testing capacity cannot be raised.
Image: A US CDC testing kit. Via Wikimedia user Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Public realm.