Covid tests for travellers: LAX edition

Post date: 2021-07-23 08:50:13

My family is emigrating to Canada in a few weeks and we need to get Covid tests in Los Angeles before we cross the border. Please help us!

The tests are required for my wife and me and our 5-year-old son. We have another child who's under 5 and so doesn't need a test. We will be crossing the border by land. The requirements are:

We must take the test at most 72 hours prior to crossing the border.

It must be one of the accepted types of tests. There's a long list, but the main ones are PCR and NAAT. Antigen tests are not accepted.

I know Walgreens and CVS do Covid testing, but they also say that they don't guarantee turnaround times for travel, so I'm a bit leery of those options.

There are also testing locations that do rapid turnaround in LAX itself, but (a) they're very expensive, and (b) our flight is at 7am and I don't want to have to wrangle two kids around the airport at that time of day with our massive amount of luggage and try to get them to hold still while somebody sticks a swab up their nose. The LAX option is firmly off the table.

Does anybody have relevant experience here? How can we get tested and make sure our results will come back in time so we can cross the border?

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