Inside the Canberra COVID testing labs facing Omicron's 'relentless' surge

It's a sight laboratory scientists working in ACT Pathology get to see each day while the sun is out.

In the immediate foreground, however, is Garran Oval, where the walk-in COVID-19 testing clinic has consistently had hours-long lines as Canberrans deal with a major surge of the Omicron variant.

While daily case tallies have not soared into the tens of thousands seen in nearby states, the nation's capital has not been spared from long testing queues, delays in PCR results and a shortage of rapid antigen tests.

But workers at ACT Pathology in Garran and the Capital Pathology laboratory, just north in Deakin, are facing the strain, too.

Their hilly, tree-lined view overlooking the surge centre also serves as a reminder of the thousands more tests about to be added to the backlog.

The laboratories have dealt with challenges during every step of the pandemic but Omicron's wrath has hit them from just about every angle.

The surge in cases has meant more people getting tested, more positive cases appearing and the chemical and science supplies needed for the work being delayed by supply chain issues.

Capital Pathology laboratory manager Sandra Molloy has been working seven days a week at the 24-hour Deakin site.

She's never felt this much pressure in her 30 years of being a pathologist.

"I've lost track of all the years now," she joked.

"I've never experienced this amount of workload, or the relentless feeling of COVID."

Before the extremely infectious variant arrived in the territory, laboratories were able to streamline the PCR results coming in by testing them in batches, or what the scientists called "pooling" the vials.

Typically four samples would be tested at once and if negative, all four vials would be ruled out as not having COVID-19.

If it did show up as positive, each of the samples would be tested individually to determine the positive vial.

For 22 months of the pandemic, the strategy allowed Australians to receive their results in under a day or two.

But a dramatic rise in the number of positives coming through the system has left them back at square one.

"The volume of patients going to get tested has changed the landscape of what we were doing pre-Omicron," Ms Molloy said.

"When you're pooling, you can do almost 400 samples at once. When there isn't a high positivity rate, you can do that quite successfully.

"But when you've got a high positivity rate, you basically can only do 90-ish samples in that same amount of time.

"When you've got that, with the added surge of thousands and thousands of samples, it's very time-consuming."

At the Canberra Health Services laboratory in Garran, ACT pathology director Glenn Edwards said the positivity rate among samples it had received peaked last week at 32 per cent.

"Omicron caused the positivity rates to escalate very rapidly from single-digit rates before Christmas," he said.

"Now it's been bouncing around between 20 to 30 per cent.

"All the labs around, certainly in the eastern states, had to stop pooling pretty suddenly, which greatly reduced our testing efficiency."

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Adding to the pressure, disrupted supply chains caused by delivery and freight workers being exposed to COVID-19 and overseas countries dealing with their own Omicron surges meant laboratories in Canberra were low on testing supplies.

Some laboratories briefly suspended testing efforts last week after reagent supply, a substance needed to facilitate chemical reactions to determine whether COVID-19 was present, was depleted.

Mr Edwards was hopeful the worst was behind them.

The arrival of rapid antigen test kits at Kambah's drive-through clinic over the weekend had already suggested a drop in the number of PCR tests being taken.

His team would meet on Monday to discuss the weekend's demands.

Ms Molloy and her team are proud of the work they do but she admitted it was not glamorous.

The last two years had taken a toll but the latest dilemma was particularly frustrating for herself and her team of scientists, who were already working increased hours.

"We are actually working 24/7 around the clock, as hard as we possibly can, to actually get the results to Canberrans because we know, whether it's a positive result or a negative result, it actually will affect their personal circumstances," she said.

"It's actually quite frustrating for us that we can't be faster at the moment.

"We've never been faced with anything like this and we are all working really hard to try and provide that service to them."

At Garran, Mr Edwards said the last month had been tough but the important work was what many had signed up for.

"I think at the heart of it is people know what they're doing is important," he said.

"It may not necessarily be in the spotlight very often, but they know that they're helping keep the community safe.

"I think that's why they're in pathology and in the public health space in the first place."

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