A COVID-19 testing event in Macon has been postponed. Here’s why.

A local COVID-19 testing event scheduled for Tuesday morning was postponed due to a backlog of tests at some Georgia labs.

A new date for the testing event, which was to be co-hosted by Historic Macon, the Georgia National Guard and Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, has not been announced.

The same group provided free tests to roughly 75 people last week and the results for those tests have not been released. Phillip Coule with Augusta University, in an interview with GPB, said the university’s lab wants to catch up to avoid delayed results.

“We are taking a pause to some of our mobile testing to allow us to make sure that we’re caught up,” Coule said. “The frustration created by delayed results is something we want to avoid.”

Coule said he hopes the organizations can resume testing at similar events in the near future once the backlog is cleared.

“We felt it better to take a bit of a pause rather than continue to flood labs,” he said. “That causes a bigger backup… We can get caught up over the next day or two and then resume testing in these areas.”

The Telegraph has reached out to Gov. Brian Kemp’s office and the Georgia National Guard for comment. Kemp’s office said the event was postponed because “There were issues solidifying logistics for the event and the criteria for testing,” according to a spokesman.

A second testing event was held in Macon on Tuesday, but the event was a privately funded one not run or supported by the National Guard.

The National Guard is operating nine testing locations across the state and assisting at others. Kemp’s office has not yet responded to questions about whether other testing events were postponed.