SVT has reviewed the County Administrative Boards' reports from the past week and it appears that several regions in one way or another have problems with testing.
"It is currently difficult to cope with the increased demand for tests.
The system for self-sampling and infection tracking under heavy load, ”writes the County Administrative Board of Skåne.
Risk of long wait
The County Administrative Board of Jämtland writes in its report that they have an "uneven capacity" to pass the testing in the entire region.
Gävleborg that there can be long response times when the pressure is high and Gotland that they have to wait a long time to get an answer from the laboratory at Karolinska to which they send their samples.
In a press release, the Stockholm Region describes the need for testing as enormous and increasing.
For four days, the possibility of ordering a home test has been paused because the laboratories already had 17,000 samples in a queue that needed to be analyzed.
Today they opened that possibility again but with limitations.
- A ceiling has been introduced for how many home tests can be ordered per day to ensure access for, among others, patients and employees in health and care, says Maria Rotzén Östlund, acting infection control doctor in the Stockholm region.
Calls for coordination
Several regions are also calling for greater coordination.
The County Administrative Board in Jönköping writes that there is "a great need for expanded national analysis capacity ahead of the winter cold / covid / flu season".
- It is the regions that are responsible for the testing.
We have a dialogue with them to see how we from the Swedish Public Health Agency can assist with state-procured actors in the regions that wish it, says Karin Tegmark Wisell, head of department at the Swedish Public Health Agency.
They are now urging the public to follow the regions' recommendations for testing.
- It is important that everyone tests themselves in a responsible way.
Test yourself for symptoms but not otherwise, unless you are part of infection tracking or similar, says Karin Tegmark Wisell.