Road to a Covid test in Long Beach is filled with potholes

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the City of Long Beach, California, set up five drive-through testing sites across the city. 

In May, Mayor Robert Garcia gushed about the importance of the sites: “Having a robust testing capacity is crucial to keeping people safe and gradually reopening the Long Beach economy,” he said.

But when my son and I attempted to actually get a test at one of the Long Beach sites, we found the process so frustrating that we nearly gave up.

My son needed a Covid-19 test before starting his summer job as a camp counselor. The city encouraged people wanting a test to make an appointment, but on my first try there were zero time slots available. That was partly because the scheduling only seemed to allow appointments about a week ahead of time. 

I had better luck on my second try, a few days later. I was able to schedule an appointment on June 27 at 3:30 p.m. at Jordan High School. I received a confirmation email with a reservation number. 

The day before the appointment, we received a voicemail saying our tests had been moved to Veterans Stadium, at the same time. This was good, because the site was closer to us.

When we arrived at Veterans Stadium the next day, about 3:15, the parking lot was dotted with orange cones marking driving lanes and a few pop-up tents. But something was amiss: There were no people there and the gate was locked.

We did see six other occupied cars lined up at the gate and took our place in line. We were confused, but hopeful that somebody would show up soon to do tests.

After about 10 minutes, a man drove up and told all of us that our tests had been moved to a different site, the Long Beach Community College campus on Pacific Coast Highway. We headed off and arrived at the other site in about 10 minutes.

But the scene there was disturbingly reminiscent of the one at Veterans Stadium: Lines of traffic cones and a few tents, but no people. We saw a security guard and asked where the testers were.

"They closed up at 2 o'clock," he said.

Frustrated, we wondered if this test -- even though free -- was worth the trouble.

Still, we returned the Long Beach City College site the next morning, encountering a long line of cars snaking through the lot. I'd estimate there were about 80 cars there.

When we pulled in at about 9:45 a.m., a woman worker asked if we had an appointment and I told her, "Yes — yesterday. But there was no one here." This puzzled her, but after we explained, she directed us into a line.

We sat still for about a half hour, then our line started to move and at about 10:25, we got to the check-in station. I showed the woman there our appointment confirmation number and she was confused, and sought help. Soon a man arrived and tried to tell us we had to go to Jordan High. I explained what had happened, and he said they would have to enter my son's info "manually."

To be clear, all the workers there were super nice and did their best to help us. Still, I was surprised they had no way to access my son's information, which I'd entered online.

So we had to pull out of line, and a different man wrote down my son's information. This delayed us about 10 minutes.

Then we pulled ahead to the testing station. A woman came to our window and gave my son a testing kit. This revealed another confusing part of the process. Our email confirmation had included a link to a video showing how to do the test. It instructed you to rub the test swab inside both cheeks, inside the bottom and top of your lips, underneath and the top of your tongue, and finally, the roof of your mouth.

But the woman at the site instructed my son differently: He was to put the swab up his nose as deep as he could without pain, and rub it around for 10 seconds in each nostril. So that's what he did.

He described it as very uncomfortable —  his eyes watered — but not painful. Then he placed the swab in a test vial as instructed, place the cap on, and returned it to the woman.  We were done about 10:40, slightly less than an hour after arriving.

Now we wait for the results, which are supposed to arrive in about 72 hours.