Sydney Covid testing queue shrink after Scott Morrison’s rule changes

The hours-long wait for a Covid test appears to be over, with queues disappearing from Sydney testing sites for the first time since before Christmas.

The hours-long wait for a Covid test appears to be over, with queues disappearing from Sydney testing sites for the first time since before Christmas.

Kilometres of queues have wreaked havoc for Sydneysiders and local traffic in recent weeks, with people lining for hours to get a PCR swab.

But changes to testing rules announced following Wednesday’s national cabinet meeting seem to have caused a testing exodus, with short queues at multiple testing clinics on Thursday.

Bondi’s drive-through Covid-19 testing clinic had a much shorter queue on Thursday than last week. Picture: Damian Shaw

Queues for testing at Bondi Beach’s previously jam-packed PCR clinic were much tamer on Thursday, with a modest dozen motorists patiently waiting to be swabbed.

Before Christmas, queues at the popular testing site once stretched for kilometres, clogging New South Head Rd all the way back to Point Piper, but the traffic cone lanes set out to control queues stood all but empty on Thursday.

In the west, the popular Roselands clinic also had much smaller queues, with traffic flowing freely on King Georges Rd for the first time in weeks, according to the Transport Management Centre.

The queue at Bondi drive-through clinic was about a dozen cars long on Thursday. Picture: Damian Shaw

A spokesman told The Daily Telegraph that traffic overall around Sydney’s testing sites had markedly improved on Thursday.

“It was much better today at all of the testing sites; there’s certainly been a reduction in terms of the impact on traffic,” the spokesman said.

“There are still some delays but nothing as bad as we’ve seen in the past … traffic is flowing well on the Great Western Hwy near the Werrington clinic now, and King Georges Rd at Roselands is clear.”

The long queues of past weeks were exacerbated by dozens of clinics closing or reducing their hours during the school holidays.

Nearly 80 clinics across NSW are closed until January 10, with others only open between 8am to 12pm.

In a visit to southwest Sydney, The Daily Telegraph observed that major testing sites at Campbelltown were shut all day, while in Leumeah and Narellan PCR testing finished just before 12pm.

Oran Park, 15km away from the Campbelltown CBD, was the closest drive-through testing clinic to that city centre and closed at 1pm.

However the closures of other clinics did not not seem to be unduly impacting it, with only half a dozen cars queued up for a swab on Thursday afternoon.

The biggest factor in reducing the queues was Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Wednesday announcement that PCR tests were no longer required to confirm the result of a positive rapid test, and truck drivers no longer needed to get seven-day rolling tests.

Patients going to hospital for treatment and private sector hospital workers will also no longer need to get a test, and a second test for international travellers once they’re on Australian soil has also been scrapped.