Why does it take so long to receive COVID-19 test results?

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - As more people get tested for COVID-19, many are getting frustrated with how long it’s taking to get back their test results. Some people even say they’ve never received their test results.

Mason Hopfensperger says health workers tested him for COVID-19 at a pop-up site on June 30. Like others, he waited in line for a couple of hours, filled out forms and expected to get a timely answer.

“I just never heard back,” Hopfensperger said. “I was kind of waiting on those results so I could feel comfortable going out and doing things outside, things like that, but I never got the results.”

Local 12 asked Hopfensperger if workers ever told him that if his test was negative that they weren’t going to call him, and he said that was not communicated.

“I looked through the pamphlets and information sheets they gave me and nothing about not being communicated if I was negative was ever talked about to me,” Hopfensperger said. “Even if it’s negative, please communicate that, whether it’s through a simple call, you don’t even have to talk to me, just a voice mail would be fine, a letter in the mail, something to communicate results in some way. It shouldn’t really take that much time.”

To this day, he says he’s not been notified of his result.

“It’s not our intent to not contact anyone,” Cincinnati Health Department Assistant Health Commissioner Domonic Hopson said.

Hopson admits the city is struggling with turnaround times for the lab, as well as their process to notify people of results.

“I think the first thing really speaks to the volume of testing we are doing,” Hopson said. “Not only the Cincinnati Health Department, but also Hamilton County is also doing a lot of testing outside of city limits, and then you factor that in too. I think we just really overwhelmed our lab capacity in the region.”

He adds more than 2,000 tests a week are being administered in the city.

“Here, recently, we’ve been using labs here in Hamilton County but also Columbus and Dayton, and that really speaks to how much testing that we’re doing that we have to reach out and find labs to handle that capacity,” Hopson said.

Hopson says while he knows it's critical to get negative test results back to people, ultimately, they’re prioritizing positive results so they can quarantine.

“I would say the average right now -- maybe seven to 10 days, but, of course, if that’s the average, you do have some outliers that are maybe two weeks or sometimes maybe even, unfortunately, longer than that,” Hopson said.

Their goal is to shorten that timeline. Hopson says they’re actively working with labs, not only in Cincinnati, but also in Columbus and Dayton. They’re also hiring more staff.

“There’s a lot of stress and anxiety related to what your status is, and we know that people who are looking to go back to work or are going to be around family, so we know there is an urgency to do that,” Hopson said.

Hopson says this past weekend they notified more than 2,600 people of their results.