Looking for a COVID test? These 2 Bay Area companies are partnering to meet local demand
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (KGO) -- As demand for COVID testing continues to rise, many administering tests are looking at ways to help meet it.
A stream of cars came through the Santa Clara Fairgrounds all afternoon. Those inside the cars were looking to get PCR tests.
"I'm doing it for others," said Ginbar Ketema who came to get tested, "I'm not traveling, I'm staying local but I plan to see family and friends so I'm doing it for them."
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Thousands more like Ketema drove through the testing site, she tells us that she's grateful that she booked her appointment when she did.
"(There are) quite a few available spots for today," Ketema said, "Tomorrow it's all booked up."
As counties work to keep up with the demand for testing, two Bay Area companies say that they've partnered up to provide people another option.
"SummerBio has largely been testing for large organizations such as schools and universities," Sasha Seletsky, SummerBio Chief Business Officer "We have excess capacity right now so we wanted to offer testing to individuals to our local communities and so we partnered with Kyla."
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SummerBio, a company the ABC7 Vaccine team first told you about earlier this year, says they have the capacity to process 30,000 more tests per day than they are currently processing in its Menlo Park lab.
Kyla, another Bay Area company, facilitates mobile COVID tests, plus testing at clinics and homes.
The companies say this partnership can help people get their coronavirus test results in 24 hours or less.
"It's just a really convenient way for people to either go to a drive-thru or we can come to you or you can come to a clinic, we're just trying to be as omni channel as possible" said Garick Hismatullin, Kyla Founder and CEO.
"SummerBio helps to make this all possible because if we had to operate lab and scale and everything else, we obviously wouldn't be able to do a good job on the part that we want to be the best."
At the county level, Santa Clara tell us that, weather permitting, they may be adjusting their hours to help meet demand and for residents to check here for availability.
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Even with a new dominant variant and high testing demand, Ginbar Ketema says that vaccines and faster test results give her more hope than she had at the start of the pandemic.
"We're not just up against it," she said "We have somewhat of a chance."
