The demand for COVID-19 testing is up, stressing labs and delaying results - USA TODAY

Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp said higher COVID-19 testing demand means results will take longer, possibly up to three days.

Amid a record demand for testing ahead of the Thanksgiving weekend, Quest Diagnostics said this week that it's taking up to three days to complete a test after receiving a sample.

LabCorp, another large private lab company, said higher testing demand means it now takes up to two days to complete a test.

The delays have not reached this summer’s levels when overwhelmed labs took a week or longer to get results, making tests of little use to people who might have unwittingly spread the virus to others.

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People wait in line to being tested at the COVID-19 mobile testing facility at Miami Beach Convention Center on Wednesday in Florida. (Photo: David Santiago/Miami Herald via AP).

He said his lab can’t get enough chemical reagents to complete timely tests for a nursing home affiliated with the hospital.

'Totally unacceptable': Testing delays force labs to prioritize COVID-19 tests for some, not others.

Because cases are so widespread, labs can no longer rely on a method of conserving supplies by testing multiple samples at once. If the test finds no signs a pooled sample contains the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the group of people tested are considered negative.

Some hospital labs have stopped doing tests for sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia and gonorrhea because those tests use the same materials needed to run COVID-19 tests, Godbey said.

Department of Health and Human Services has purchased antigen testing machines and sent them to more than 15,000 nursing homes. HHS also purchased 150 million rapid antigen test cards called BinaxNOW, made by Abbott Laboratories

People wait in their cars to be tested for the coronavirus with drive-up rapid testing at the FITTEAM Ballpark of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Oct

Michael Mina, a Harvard epidemiologist, has advocated for creating a national strategy to promote more widespread use of rapid antigen tests

Although antigen tests are less sensitive than lab-based PCR tests, Mina argues if used frequently they can detect when a person is infectious and more likely to spread the virus to others. 

We’d also start to see PCR testing not be backed up so much because we could start actually replacing some of that PCR testing with rapid testing."

Mina predicted the nation could effectively control the spread of the virus within two months if Americans took these home tests twice a week – and isolated from others when infected