Testing centres in Katherine and Greater Darwin are being overwhelmed, with the system struggling to process the volume of tests from Top End exposure sites.
Long lines of cars queued again on Thursday morning at testing centres in Katherine, where the bulk of new cases in a coronavirus cluster have been confirmed.
Before the categories of people required to isolate while awaiting tests were reduced late yesterday, the main centre in Palmerston, on the edge of Darwin, was struggling to process hundreds of tests.
Palmerston Super Clinic chief executive Robyn Cahill, said her testing team, made up of her and one other staff member, was not warned prior to the testing requirements announced by the NT government.
"It was like the floodgates opened, so we had no time to prepare," she told ABC Radio Darwin on Thursday morning.
Ms Cahill said her clinic would today refer people to a mass-testing centre being established in Mararra, Darwin, this morning.
"It has been a really challenging couple of days," she said.
The rapid increase in demand for COVID-19 tests from Katherine and Robinson River was also putting pressure on laboratory staff tasked with processing the results, Ms Cahill said.
As a result, it could take people up to 48 hours to receive their results instead of the usual 24 to 36 hours.
Testing requirements updated
Late on Wednesday, after crowds flocked to testing clinics, the NT government set out new testing requirements for anyone who had been in Katherine since Sunday, November 7 or Robinson River or its surrounding homelands since Thursday, November 11.
Under the new directions, unvaccinated people — including those who have only had one dose — must immediately get tested and isolate until they receive a negative result.
Fully vaccinated people do not have to isolate but must get tested within the next three days.
In a COVID press conference on Thursday, NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner said he recognised that the government's initial call for people to test and isolate — regardless of vaccination status — was "a disruptive one that affected many people".
"There was a lot of movement," he said.
"Thank you to everyone for complying. It showed how much movement there was out of Katherine and why our Territory-wide measures are important."
Katherine clinics race to keep up
The backlog of tests awaiting processing is also affecting health clinics in communities around Katherine.
"We do have immediate testing capacity in the bush, but it is limited," Sinon Cooney, CEO of Katherine West Regional Health, told ABC Radio Darwin.
On a typical day, the health service normally produces results in an hour.
But Mr Cooney said the demand for dozens of tests was pushing out the turnaround time.
That is why health authorities are asking that only close contacts and casual contacts in Katherine, as well as anyone who is showing symptoms, come forward to get tested.
"It's so we don't overwhelm all our resources at once," Mr Cooney said.
Only after those people have been tested will authorities ask asymptomatic people in the area to come forward, he said.
Apologies from NT authorities
NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner yesterday apologised to people who had been turned away from Katherine's drive-through testing clinic on Tuesday night.
"I am sorry that happened," he said.
"We have now made sure that it is clear that the testing clinic will stay open past 6:30pm if there are people there to be tested."
But Katherine resident Ben Coutts told ABC Radio Darwin he struggled to get a test late yesterday.
He said that after calling the COVID hotline and waiting in line for about an hour and 20 minutes, he and his partner finally arrived at the front of the queue to find "a small A3 placard that said 'appointment only'".
"We proceeded to let a handful of people know just from the car window down the line," he said.
"Out of 60 cars or 70 cars, half of them turned back around."
The man said he and his partner went down to a walk-in clinic, but the line was full of a "couple of hundred people, all standing about 20cm away from each other and leaning on the fences".
