SAN ANTONIO – The holidays are a busy time of year for traveling and having large gatherings. With the omicron and delta variant spreading, it could also be a busy season for COVID. People hoping to check if they are COVID free before and after Christmas are having some trouble finding tests and testing locations.
“They’ve been booked out since about last week as well it’s hard to find somewhere to conveniently go and get a test done so it’s makes it hard,” said Leticia Luna, who had flown into the San Antonio international airport.
Several local urgent care clinics as well as CVS and Walgreens testing sites has their availability booked for Sunday and the majority of Monday. Several stores in the San Antonio area were also sold out of the at-home testing kits.
Dr. Ruth Berggren, an infectious disease specialist at UT Health San Antonio, said if you do find an at-home testing kit, you should be cautious with the results it gives you.
“If you have symptoms and you have one negative at-home test, you’re not out of the woods and you need to mask and not go expose other people and you need to get that test repeated,” Dr. Berggren said.
Dr. Berggren said if you have no symptoms and negative results from an at-home test, you should be fine. However, if you have symptoms or have been exposed to COVID but still received negative at-home test results, you should retest.
If you are retesting, Dr. Berggren says you should go to a clinic or take another at-home test in 24-36 hours.