People are legit joking about selling a place in line in a COVID testing queue and honestly, at this stage, I’m considering it.
Over in a Sydney-based buy, sell and swap Facebook group, a bloke has offered, assumedly jokingly, his spot in the line for the COVID testing facility in Eastwood for a small sum of *checks notes* $888.
“Don’t waste your holiday time waiting,” they said in the post.
“I will stand in the COVID testing queue for you and sell my spot when I’m near the front!”
In the comments of that post, it appears people are either considering doing it themselves or jokingly willing to spend nearly $1k on a fast-pass to get their nussy swabbed deep.
“$888 is definitely worth it to not have to wake up at 5am,” commented one person on Facebook.
“Is this what they mean by capitalism breeds innovation,” joked another.
Another simply said: “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry”.
Getting in and out fast is a commodity right now. Otherwise, you might end up like this poor sucker caught on cam by Instagram account The Humans of Eastwood Daily taking a nap while they were in line earlier today.
In case you’ve been living under a rock and not been exposed to COVID or had symptoms, people are waiting for up to eight hours in testing queues and over five days to receive their PCR results.
PEDESTRIAN.TV news reporter Aleksandra Bliszczyk attended a testing clinic in Melbourne on Monday, December 20th, that was supposed to have a wait time of approximately 120 minutes. She ended up waiting almost 3.5 hours, and was informed that there were only four staff members on duty for a queue of hundreds.
Soaliha Iqbal, news writer for PEDESTRIAN.TV, waited for 30 minutes at 11pm last night while attending a 24 hour testing site in Sydney. She was then told by staff that it would still be another two hours until she could be tested. She was encouraged to go home and then return around 1am, which she did. She still ended up waiting 30-40 minutes before being tested around 2am.
Fortunately, this Insta gives real-time updates on wait times at certain Sydney COVID testing clinics and NSW and Victoria residents will soon have free access to rapid antigen tests.
