UAMS says COVID testing has ramped up to 1,000 tests per day

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — The omicron surge continues to be a concern for health officials in the state and they are urging Arkansans to keep getting tested.

Dr. Robert Hopkins with UAMS said getting a COVID-19 test and knowing your status could help fight against the disease. He said they are not seeing their peak hospitalizations on Monday compared to last week. Hopkins said it's important Arkansans should stay isolated pending their health status.

"I think it's important for people to recognize that the vast majority of those that are hospitalized with COVID right now, are hospitalized for COVID or symptoms related to COVID," Hopkins said. "They're not hospitalized for other things and just discovered to have COVID."

According to Hopkins, it now takes 24 to 36 hours before they can confirm their test results. He said it's important to get tested early in case anyone has symptoms. Hopkins said before any symptoms become severe they can get treated quickly.

"A year ago it was two to three days often times when we got to large volumes. We've really succeeded in bringing things down and when we first started we were talking three to five days," Hopkins said.

Hopkins told KATV due to the recent surge, they have been open every day for several weeks.

"We have had as many as a 1,000 or more tests a day for these last several weeks, and a year ago we were seeing between probably 500 to 750 as the high," Hopkins said.

Brooks Rogers with Don's Pharmacy said they are continuing to test Arkansans for COVID-19. He said compared to waiting for COVID test results at a drive-thru site, it doesn't take long at their pharmacy.

"Our COVID tests, it takes about an hour for those results to come through, so that's a lot quicker than going through a drive-thru and waiting 24 to 48 hours to get your results," Rogers said.

According to Rogers, they have at-home COVID testing kits for sale. He said they have rapid antigen and PCR tests. Rogers said they have received a lot of phone calls about KN95 masks and at-home COVID tests, but they hope to have those masks restocked in a couple of days.

"All of COVID supplies have been hard to come by and then it's hard to keep your inventory in check, because you don't want to buy too much, and then the cases full," Rogers said. "Then you wanna have enough on hand for when you need them."

Officials with Baptist Health told KATV in the first 24 days of January, they've administered nearly 29,000 COVID tests compared to last year, it was nearly 10,000 tests. They said the average time from collecting COVID tests for the last four days has been nine hours, and the average number of drive-thru tests per day for the last week has been 735.