This story has been updated.

COVID-19 tests are in such limited supply in Prince George’s County, Maryland, the county’s health department is restricting residents to one free test each, unless they demonstrate symptoms of the disease.

A county health department spokesperson confirmed the policy to WAMU/DCist Thursday after a fellow at the Brookings Institution tweeted about “rationing” of tests in the county. The jurisdiction has the most COVID-19 cases in Maryland, with more than 23,000 cases reported there since health officials began monitoring the outbreak in March, according to the Baltimore Sun.

To receive more than one free test provided by the health department, residents must have been exposed to someone with COVID-19, have symptoms or be part of a county contact tracing investigation, Prince George’s County Health Officer Ernest Carter said through a representative.

A nurse practitioner who answered the county’s COVID-19 hotline Thursday said individuals who try to get tested more than once will be seen by a health provider, but they will have to demonstrate their eligibility for a test.

“We have limited resources,” the nurse practitioner said. “Some people have been going [to testing sites] almost every week, and the county is trying to be mindful about it.”

But some residents say they’ve been denied free tests before being asked about symptoms or exposure to infected people. When Prince George’s County Public Schools staff member Andy Gomez visited a testing site in Laurel with his mother Thursday morning, he informed a health worker they’d both been tested at another county site in April. The worker immediately turned them away, he says.

“She told us that since we had previously gotten tested at the Department of Health [in Cheverly], that we would not be able to get another test with the county,” Gomez says. “They didn’t even ask me about symptoms.”

The Laurel resident says they were advised to get tested at CVS or a local urgent care center. Both Gomez and his mother were recently exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19, he says, and they’re eager to find out whether they’ve been infected.

County Council member Deni Taveras, who represents parts of Langley Park and Hyattsville, tweeted she was also turned away when she tried to get a free COVID-19 test at a county site this week.

In a statement, Carter says the health department “regularly retrains its ever-shifting number of available clinical staff and volunteer test site workers about the latest testing and operations guidance, which like this pandemic, has changed shape and size many times. When we learn about errors occurring, we will correct them immediately.”

Neighboring Montgomery County recently ramped up COVID-19 testing availability, offering free saliva-based tests at locations around the county as part of a deal the county struck with Rockville-based laboratory AdvaGenix. There is no cap on the number of tests an individual can receive, according to Mary Anderson, a spokesperson for the county’s health department, but residents are encouraged to seek no more than one free test per week.

The one-test-per-person policy in Prince George’s County remains in place despite a rising number of COVID-19 cases, which has been pushed upward by people under 50 contracting the virus, the county’s chief health official said last week.

“Physical distancing and other protective measures, both in the county and nationwide, have not been as robust as we should have had them,” Health Officer Ernest Carter said during a press conference.

George Lettis, a spokesperson for the Prince George’s County Health Department, says the county isn’t facing a shortage of testing kits, but testing capacity is “not unlimited.”

Availability of COVID-19 tests “fluctuates based on manufacturers and supply lines,” Lettis said, and the county receives them on a weekly basis.

Prince George’s County has been providing free COVID-19 testing since March, when it opened its first public test center at FedEx Field. That site is now closed, but the county continues to offer tests at five locations, in addition to sites run by the state.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is one of seven governors forming a compact to purchase a large supply of low-cost, quick-turnaround COVID-19 tests for their states. Hogan wants to procure 500,000 tests for Marylanders, with funding potentially provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Washington Post reported this week. Prince George’s County could receive some of these tests, if they come to fruition.

“With severe shortages and delays in testing and the federal administration attempting to cut funding for testing, the states are banding together to acquire millions of faster tests to help save lives and slow the spread of COVID-19,” Hogan said in a statement.

This story was updated to include a statement from Prince George’s County Health Officer Ernest Carter.