ODESSA, Texas — Many people across the country continue to line up to get tested for COVID-19. That includes people here in West Texas.
In some cases people who are getting tested do not receive their results quick enough.
Community Wellness America is an organization who was offering the tests in multiple locations in Odessa over the last month.
NewsWest 9 spoke with Gloria Apolinario, the Corporate Campaign Coordinator for CWA. She said the labs are overwhelmed, but in some cases the numbers could be wrong in the contact information of the person being tested.
"We have done testing for like maybe 2,000 people in Odessa this month," said Apolinario. "The people that are calling about not receiving their results is very minimal. According to labs, they are saying that the telephone is not taking the text so they can't do anything about it. Test results are not being returned since the telephone is not right."
Apolinario said the organization conducts tests across the state and not just in Odessa.
"If you look at the Community Wellness America website, they are in San Antonio, El Paso and Amarillo," said Apolinario. "Tests are also conducted in other states"
According to Apolinario, the tests for this organization are sent to two labs: one in San Diego and one in Puerto Rico.
"Nationwide labs are overwhelmed," said Apolinario. "In a given week 300,000 tests were to be processed by the one we do. They couldn't do it, they couldn't keep up."
As of January 28, the testing is no longer being offered by Community Wellness America.
"We even put a pause so we are not testing for this week," said Apolinario. "We are trying to get the labs a chance to keep up."
Apolinario said they plan to change the process of recording numbers on a digital format to avoid confusions. They soon hope to open up again and offer rapid testing so people don't have to wait for results.