Tell HN: COVID19 Testing Is a Mess

My friend (who was in the middle of a cross country move by car) found out he was exposed to someone with coronavirus two days ago. When he told us this, myself and others immediately started calling places to see where he could get tested and get results quickly when he got into town.

Multiple places told us he could get results back in less than 24 hours but then once he called them (and presumably told them he was asymptomatic) he was told it would take about a week. This is in a major metropolitan area.

I thought Google was supposed to have some special tool that made it easy to find where to get tested but their COVID branded search I found didn't give us much valuable info.

He ended up getting tested yesterday and we later came to find out he lied about his symptoms in order to get an appointment for a test. We also came to find out that the person he was originally exposed to also faked symptoms in order to get tested.

I can't believe how hard it was even just to get information about being tested, which then turned out to be inaccurate.