Covid testing faces delays — again — as demand spikes ahead of the holidays - CNBC

With the holidays approaching, some companies calling workers back to the office and anxiety over the virus rising with the daily case count, demand for accurate Covid-19 testing is spiking.

An average of 1.6 million Covid-19 tests were run every day over the last week, compared with a seven-day average of less than 900,000 in July, according to data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project, which is run by journalists at The Atlantic magazine.

The surge in demand is yet again stressing the supply chain for PCR molecular tests — the gold standard in Covid-19 testing — leading to long lines for testing, shortages in testing supplies and processing delays across the country.

Demand for Quest's molecular tests is up about 50% compared with the last week of September, the company said, adding that there's an industrywide shortage of testing supplies.

But it expects cases and demand to rise "for the foreseeable future, which may cause turnaround times to grow," the company said in a statement.

On Wednesday, the company said its average turnaround time was more than a day, the longest it's been since the surge in July and August had people waiting several days or more for their Covid-19 test results.

Deepak Nath, president of laboratory diagnostics at Europe-based Siemens Healthineers, said some labs might have the capacity to process more tests, but the stressed supply chain is constraining their ability to do so.

Earlier this month, the American Society for Microbiology published the findings of their recent survey, which showed that 134 clinical labs reported running at an average Covid-19 testing capacity of 50.8% — meaning the shortage in supplies has them running at about half of their normal capacity.

Still, he said, labs are running out of supplies, including pipette tips, nasal swabs, chemicals and even trained personnel, who are increasingly burned out from months of grueling hours