It’s nearly impossible to find an at-home COVID-19 testing kit in Beaufort Co. Why?
Rapid at-home coronavirus testing kits have been touted as crucial weapons against the super-contagious omicron variant, which is sweeping across the Southeast in the days leading up to Christmas.
But good luck finding one in Beaufort County.
An Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette reporter visited 14 pharmacies and grocery stores on Wednesday in search of the kits.
The outcome?
Between 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., the reporter found only five rapid at-home testing kits for sale. Four of those were at one store, the Walgreens at 2363 Boundary St. in Beaufort.
The prices ranged from about $24 to $39 per kit.
The reporter also found three mail-in COVID-19 testing kits for sale south of the Broad River. (With those kits, people have to collect their own samples, then mail them to a laboratory to get their results.)
The cost of those mail-in testing kits: roughly $125 each.
For context, Beaufort County has more than 187,100 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The demand for rapid testing has skyrocketed in recent days, as people try to confirm whether they have COVID-19 before attending holiday celebrations.
Pharmacy workers across Beaufort County on Wednesday said they no longer have any kits to sell.
A Walmart employee in Bluffton offered this advice: “The best time to check is first thing in the morning.”
The issue is not unique to Beaufort County. CVS, Walgreens and Walmart, citing the nationwide spike in demand, recently limited the number of kits that people can buy at their locations or online. (A sign at a CVS in Port Royal on Wednesday warned customers that they could buy no more than four rapid testing kits. Walgreens on Tuesday also limited purchases to four kits per customer. And the new Walmart cap is eight kits per online order.)
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has acknowledged that the country can “do better with at-home testing.”
“The federal government will purchase one half billion — that’s not million; billion with a “B” — additional at-home rapid tests, with deliveries starting in January,” Biden said Tuesday during a speech about his plan to combat the omicron variant. “We’ll be getting these tests to Americans for free. And we’ll have websites where you can get them delivered to your home.”
The president offered few details on that initiative. And his promised influx of rapid at-home testing kits will not reach the Lowcountry until after the holidays.
(Rapid testing kits also are sold online, including at CVS and Walgreens, but CVS says “deliveries may be delayed,” and Walgreens says the well-known BinaxNOW testing kit is out of stock.)
How else can people get tested?
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control has an online map that shows COVID-19 testing sites across Beaufort and Jasper counties: bit.ly/SCTestingMap
According to the map, some free testing clinics in the area are not open for the next several days.
The Beaufort County Health Department, though, will host free testing on Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 601 Wilmington St. in Beaufort, according to DHEC. The testing site will reopen on Monday, the map says.
Beaufort Memorial Hospital, meanwhile, recently decided to close its free drive-thru testing location in Beaufort. The clinic will shutter after Thursday.
A hospital spokeswoman in a statement Tuesday wrote that the hospital currently has no plans to reopen the site, despite omicron’s rapid spread in the United States.
The hospital still is offering COVID-19 tests to some patients at its Express Care locations, including those with respiratory symptoms, the spokeswoman confirmed.
“The services are billed to the patient’s insurance or considered self-pay,” she wrote.
Searching for rapid tests
Here are the pharmacies and grocery stores that a reporter visited Wednesday in search of rapid at-home COVID-19 testing kits:
Walmart, 25 Pembroke Drive on Hilton Head Island: There were no testing kits visible on store shelves
Publix, 45 Pembroke Drive on Hilton Head: A pharmacy staff member said the kits were sold out
CVS, 85 Mathews Drive on Hilton Head: There were no testing kits visible on store shelves
Walgreens, 11 Palmetto Bay Road on Hilton Head: One Pixel by Labcorp mail-in COVID-19 testing kit was available for about $125
CVS, 1006 Fording Island Road in Bluffton: A pharmacy staff member said the store had no kits
Walmart, 4 Bluffton Road in Bluffton: A pharmacy staff member said the kits were sold out
Kroger, 125 Towne Drive in Bluffton: There was an empty box for BinaxNOW testing kits
Publix, 80 Baylor Drive in Bluffton: A pharmacy staff member said the kits were sold out
Kroger, 27 Discovery Drive in Bluffton: There was an empty box for BinaxNOW testing kits
Walgreens, 138 Okatie Center Boulevard South in Okatie: Two Everlywell mail-in COVID-19 testing kits were available for about $125 each
Walmart, 350 Robert Smalls Parkway in Beaufort: A pharmacy staff member said the kits were sold out
Walgreens, 2363 Boundary St. in Beaufort: Four QuickVue at-home COVID-19 testing kits were available for about $24 each
Publix, 61 Ladys Island Drive on Lady’s Island: A pharmacy staff member said the kits were sold out
CVS, 1500 Ribaut Road in Port Royal: One Ellume at-home COVID-19 testing kit was available for about $39
