This story was updated at 4:24 p.m.

Arlington County and the Virginia Hospital Center launched a coronavirus sampling site Wednesday, but a short supply of test kits and limited lab processing ability are forcing them to be selective with who they see.

Their tight restrictions reveal a chaotic picture: Only some Virginia counties have launched testing programs, and the state is referring people to clinics that don’t have testing capabilities, while private hospitals that ramp up testing are quickly overloaded.

Melody Dickerson, the senior vice president and chief nursing officer at the Virginia Health Center, said her group started an off-site collection center to protect vulnerable patients in hospitals.

[Read the latest updates about coronavirus in our region here]

“Our emergency department is full of patients who are ill, who seek emergency medical treatment,” Dickerson said. “We want to make sure that people who believe they might have been exposed to COVID aren’t intermingling with those other patients.”

Dickerson said the VHC is providing staff, while Arlington County is providing a site on Quincy Street for sample collection from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays. Patients must drive in, and a medical worker shouts instructions with a megaphone through the car’s closed window. To get tested, a patient needs to have a doctor’s order for a test and make an appointment. Only Arlington residents, employees of the county government or public schools or VHS patients are eligible.

Dickerson estimated the site could process about six patients an hour over the course of a six-hour day. Results will be available in four or five days, she said. The restrictions are necessary to prevent “a logjam of results” so that the most vulnerable patients get their tests processed first.

Arlington County has 14 presumed cases of COVID-19 and is tied with Fairfax County for most cases in the state, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

Outside the site, Virginia resident Luis Ramirez said he could not get in.

“I feel a little headache, so cold inside in my bones. I feel so bad, I never felt like this in my life,” he said. “I’m worried about my kids.”

Ramirez, 45, said he works in construction and lives in Prince William County with his wife and two children, aged 14 and 4. He is uninsured.

When he drove up to the site, Ramirez said the workers would not test him because he had no appointment; rather, they taped a note with a phone number and fax number to his window. But Ramirez is not an Arlington resident and does not qualify for a test.

Dickerson said the county was limiting its tests and believed other counties could provide their own services.

“There’s testing available in … all the counties, so [patients] need to check in with their local health department,” she said.

That does not appear to be the case in all localities. Prince William Health Department does not perform tests. The Virginia Department of Health suggested Ramirez could visit a federally-qualified health center in the county called the GPW Health Center.

However, a medical scheduler there said the clinic did not perform tests and suggested patients should go to the Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center in Woodbridge.

Ramirez said he actually went to Sentara earlier Wednesday, when his symptoms first began at 4 a.m.

“They say you need to see a doctor and let the doctor decide,” he said. “I ask them how much it will cost, they said you have to check with the finance person.”

Sentara spokeswoman Susan Bahorich wrote in an e-mail to WAMU, “Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center has the ability to test high-risk COVID-19 patients inside the hospital.” She added that the hospital could help uninsured patients by providing discounted services.

The hospital group began some drive-through testing in southern Virginia earlier in the week, but announced it could no longer continue after two days of operating. “Because of our limited supplies, we must temporarily close all of our drive-thru screening and testing locations,” Sentara wrote in an announcement. The center said it is working to get additional tests.

Ramirez balked at seeing a doctor without knowing the price. He said he would take a few days off work and wait to see if his symptoms disappeared. But he was unsettled by the experience.

“How you going to stop that virus if they don’t do nothing?” he said.

Dickerson said it would be “very helpful” if the government could collect samples and run tests.

“We did not anticipate the number of patients that we’ve had today, who would just show up,” she said Wednesday. “We really thought people would follow the instructions, so lesson learned.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comment from a spokesperson at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center.

This story originally appeared on WAMU.