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Dr. Melisa Lai-Becker, the medical director for the emergency department at Cambridge Health Alliance's Everett Hospital, spent much of Monday afternoon urgently calling hospitals all over the state.

"I was searching for an ICU [intensive care unit] bed for one of our patients, and every single facility is full," she said. "They are at full capacity. They have no ICU beds left."

WORCESTER, Mass. - Monday marked another day of long lines at the Mercantile Center COVID-19 testing site in downtown Worcester.

Hundreds of people lined up to get tested following the holiday season, including 250 people tested in the first hour the clinic was open on Monday.

Bay Staters are having their patience tested to kick off the year as thousands of people on Monday waited in massive lines — some shivering in the bitter cold for hours — to get tested for COVID amid the omicron surge.

As sites get overwhelmed following the holidays, local officials are pleading with Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration to add more locations to address the coronavirus testing “log jam.”

“Patients like being in their home, where they’re happier and sleeping in their own beds, surrounded by loved ones, their favorite cat and TV,” said Dr. Taki Michaelidis, medical director of the program at UMass Memorial Health. “In your home environment, you just recover better.”

WORCESTER, Mass. — Hundreds of people in Massachusetts waited for hours outside in the cold in order to receive a COVID-19 test following the New Year's holiday weekend.

Sky5 was able to capture the long, snaking line that formed outside the Mercantile Center in Worcester on Monday.

WORCESTER (CBS) – The president of UMass Memorial Health Care says this month is going to be “rough” for hospitals in the state.

Dr. Eric Dickson told WBZ-TV’s Christina Hager Monday that the “crunch time” for this latest surge of COVID-19 will be in the next two weeks. He said the positivity rates are so high because the Omicron variant is a “hyper-infectious virus.”

WORCESTER, Mass. - It was another busy day of COVID-19 testing at the Mercantile Center in downtown Worcester on Thursday.

Hundreds of people lined up to get tested before New Year’s Eve. 

"I don't know how anyone could believe that allowing the most expensive, largest health care system in the state to expand at the expense of smaller, less expensive health care systems could reduce the cost of health care in the state," said Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO of UMass Memorial Health. "It just doesn't pass the sniff test."

WORCESTER — When Ashley Rivera chooses names for her children, she tries to pick something unique.

"I pick names that will make them stand out in the world," she said.