HAMPTON, Va. — By the time Terrell Humphries came to the front of the line, he had waited about 6 hours in line.
“It probably was 8:45, been here a long time," Terrell Humphries said, a noticeably go-lucky patient playing throwback tracks to pass the time. “I got to play some music to keep my mind going!”
On the day before the calendar flipped to 2022, hundreds waited an entire day just for one COVID test at the Boo Williams Sportsplex.
The clinic, running from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., was able to administer more than 300 COVID tests Friday, but many left empty-handed as well.
By noon, the clinic began turning people away at the parking lot entrance to the Sportsplex, because the clinic's testing supply wouldn't be able to get to any additional people getting in line.
Humphries is one of the hundreds of people who lined up at the New Year's Eve clinic and is one of the lucky ones who got in line early enough to receive a test. But like so many Friday, waited hours from start to finish.
“We’re running out of tests, and we have to tell all these folks we don’t have any more tests, and we don’t have at-home tests," Gaylene Kanoyton said, President of Celebrate Healthcare said. "And we can’t even tell them where to go get one because all the pharmacies are booked."
Even getting to the clinic at its start time, would have been too late.
Once the clinic stopped allowing new patients to enter the waiting line, they had to turn away people already waiting in line that wouldn't be able to receive a test based on supply. The patients that were then left at the end, told 13News Now they had gotten in line before the clinic started, at around 9:30 in the morning.
Virginia's 7-day positivity rate is nearing 22%, as the state recorded record-breaking new infections Friday.