SYDNEY, N.S. -- The lineups snaked around the Membertou Entertainment Centre on Monday despite driving rain and wind.

Dozens at a time waited patiently to get inside for a COVID-19 test.

Crystle Stone stood outside in the elements for more than an hour.

"Oh, it was cold, very cold," Stone said. "But if I had to stand in the wind and rain all day long to protect my family, that's what I'll do."

Amanda Carroll is among the many parents who kept their kids home from school on Monday. In fact, she's keeping her children, ages 16 and five, home for the whole week.

"You can feel the tension everywhere you go -- and the panic," Carroll said. "People are starting to panic."  

Three schools in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education are closed, because of COVID-19 connected cases.

Carroll says it's a sign of how much things have changed here.

"We really thought we were in such a good place, and I remember being like, 'I'm so happy that we're at least outside this year,' and we were celebrating birthdays on steps, 10 feet apart from people," said Carroll."And then, within days, it changed."

Island Martial Arts Centre in Sydney is also closing for the week -- all activities, including an after-school program -- partly because of the cases in schools and because of a cluster of cases stemming from a hockey game at the Membertou Sport & Wellness Centre April 17-18.

"The staff want to get tested," said Angie MacDonald. "There's a lot of students who wouldn't be attending anyway. Parents were calling us, saying they'd be out for the week already." 

CBRM Mayor Amanda McDougall says when it comes to shutting things down, the municipality takes most of its direction from the province.

But, she has some advice for the province: she says more testing sites are needed after the long lineups the past two days.

"We need more access to testing," McDougall said. "Testing is going to give us the data that we need to control community spread, understand exactly where it is, and how to stop it."

For now, some are finding comfort in the fact hundreds turned out in the pouring rain to get tested today.

"It says a lot about Cape Bretoners, it really does," Stone says. "And I'm so proud of every one of us."

Uncertain times, in a community that until now, had been spared much of the worst of this pandemic.