ALBANY — Elizabeth Gibson was already stressed out when she showed up to Samaritan Hospital's Albany Memorial campus for coronavirus testing Tuesday.

The 26-year-old Albany resident had serious chest pains the night before, and an emergency room doctor ordered she get tested after days of experiencing cough, fever, aches and shortness of breath. So she went early the next morning, and was handed a mask as she lined up with about 15 other people underneath a tent.

What unfolded next left her rattled: A woman entered the tent, unmasked and coughing, and demanded a test. When she was refused — tests are administered by appointment only, and on a doctor’s order — she began yelling obscenities at the nurses on staff, Gibson said. Then she called her doctor’s office, on speaker phone, and yelled at the receptionist.

“It just seemed like if I didn't have COVID, then there's a chance I got it from being there,” said Gibson, referring to the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. “She was in line right behind me.”

Her worry — of dense lines and possible exposure — is one felt by others who’ve sought out testing around the Capital Region. Many say they’re impressed by the professionalism of the staff working the sites, but worried about their proximity to so many people who are potentially infected. Local and state officials are hoping to set up more drive-through testing sites in hot spots around the state, so as to eliminate possible exposures like Gibson’s.

At Memorial, the tent leads to a small hallway that leads to a larger air-controlled room where swabs are taken from a person’s nose and throat. At various points along the way, information is collected from the patients.

Gibson said she was asked if she was an employee of a hospital (she's not) and told there's a separate testing line for health care workers, who were observed getting tested on Monday.

Jamie Burditt said the scene wasn’t busy when he went for testing at Memorial around 6 p.m. Monday. But the cramped intake area, where four nurses sat taking people’s information, left him concerned.

“Being inside, even with a mask and hand sanitizer made me feel like if I didn’t have the virus already, I’d have it after being inside there,” he said.

St. Peter’s Health Partners, which operates the Memorial testing site, was unable to provide details about how it handles walk-ins and ensures social distancing at the test sites. A spokeswoman for the health system said they “work closely” with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Health to monitor COVID-19 and follow their testing guidance and protocols.

Burditt was initially denied a test because he wasn’t “at-risk” enough. He was planning to go back to work Tuesday, but called his primary care doctor once more Monday and finally got approved. Now he’s quarantined.

At Albany Medical Center’s testing site, a white tent set up outside the emergency room, the intake area for testing is “quite small,” according to one man who sought testing and asked to remain anonymous to maintain his medical privacy.

At the intake, he said, staff wearing full protective gear and masks collect names, identify symptoms, take temperatures by mouth, and check blood pressure.

Masks for those seeking tests were available at the entrance, but the man — and his girlfriend and her son — all brought their own.

“They made sure we covered up as soon as the thermometer was out of your mouth,” he said.

Albany Med, as well as Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, offer drive-through testing options. On Monday, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy said he’d like to get an expanded drive-through testing site like the kind that are currently operational downstate, where the majority of New York’s cases have spread.

Those sites — in Westchester County and Long Island — are operated by the state and can accommodate hundreds of people a day. Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently authorized drive-through testing facilities in Suffolk and Rockland counties, and on Staten Island.

Drive-through mobile testing facilities help keep people who are sick or at risk of having contracted coronavirus out of healthcare facilities where they could infect other people, Cuomo said. The governor is trying to move the state’s daily test count from hundreds to 6,000 by the end of the week.

Concerns are heavy that health care employees working the front lines will become infected and unable to help a surge of patients that's expected nationwide.

On Monday evening, the New York State Nurses Association said it's concerned about new federal infection protocols that “substantially roll back” health care worker protection standards.

The union called on the CDC and other authorities to immediately issue “universal, standardized and mandatory” protocols to be used by all local hospitals and health care providers to protect front-line workers from exposure.