LINCOLN - The closure Thursday of Lincoln's busiest COVID-19 testing site brought into sharp focus the difficulty many people have reported in getting a test as cases surge.

The site referenced is Nomi Health, which temporarily shut down its drive-thru testing site at Gateway Mall due to frigid temperatures.

Mario Cuartas, a product manager with the health care company, said Nomi had been averaging about 350-400 tests per day at the Gateway site in early November before seeing a spike before and after Thanksgiving that culminated in 722 tests on Nov. 29.

Testing numbers returned into the 500s daily for most of December before rising to 960 on Dec. 23 and have remained close to that level since.

Because of that demand, Nomi Health has brought in additional staff and is planning to expand its parking lot testing site in Lincoln.

In addition to increased staff, Cuartas said a second drive-thru tent should be up and running by the end of next week, or around January 14.

While the new location may increase testing capacity slightly, the main purpose is to decrease delays for the tests as waits have stretched to several hours. People have even been turned away at the end of the day as a result of the wait times.

These staggering numbers demonstrate the implications that closing, even for one day, can have on the local testing infrastructure.

Bryan Health said in a statement that it performed 1,569 tests in the week ending Saturday at its urgent care clinics and its two emergency rooms in Lincoln.

CHI Health also offers walk-in testing at its three Priority Care locations in Lincoln; all of which have seen more traffic since around Christmas.

States like Indiana, for example, have begun only administering rapid tests to children under age 18 and people over 50 with COVID-19 symptoms due to the lack of rapid antigen tests.

But with cases hitting single-day records, even at-home tests have become difficult to find.

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