It took Matthew Phillips four hours to get a coronavirus test.

Mr. Phillips, a 34-year-old Seattle resident, spent Wednesday morning refreshing dozens of websites on his laptop until he could find an appointment. And once he did get to a testing site, he spent another hour and a half in line before it was his turn.

He is now hoping he will get a negative result in time for his flight to Houston on Thursday to see his relatives for Christmas.

“It does feel like déjà vu,” Mr. Phillips said. “It feels like we’re just living in this recurring nightmare.”

Indeed, a day after President Biden announced a renewed focus on testing as a way to combat the coronavirus, it was clear that the landscape for testing reflected many of the divisions and frustrations — practical, political and otherwise — of the nation’s overall response to the nearly two-year-old pandemic.