A COVID test mess
After scaling down, feds push to get kits back into circulation
The Biden administration wants to ensure there are plenty of rapid at-home COVID tests to curb the latest wave of infections overloading hospitals and threatening to shutter classrooms around the country.
But the tests have already disappeared from pharmacy shelves in many parts of the U.S., and manufacturers warn it will take them weeks to ramp up production, after scaling it back amid plummeting demand over the summer.
The latest shortage is another painful reminder that the U.S. has yet to successfully manage its COVID-19 testing arsenal, let alone deploy it in the type of systematic way needed to quickly crush outbreaks in schools, workplaces and communities.
White House COVID coordinator Jeffrey Zients said on Wednesday that the
U.S. will spend $1 billion to triple the number of at-home tests on the market by early November, NBC News reported.
“We’ll continue to pull every lever as we have throughout the pandemic response on testing to expand manufacturing production of tests in order to make testing even more widely available and drive down the cost per test,” Zients said.
President Biden implemented the Defense Production Act earlier this year to ensure the companies have the raw materials to make the tests. If those plans sound familiar, it’s because they were part of Biden’s original strategy for dealing with COVID-19 released in January.
Abbott Laboratories — the country’s largest rapid test maker — said it is currently producing “tens of millions” of its BinaxNOW tests per month and working to increase capacity in the coming weeks.
Rapid tests have a clear advantage in that they can be done anywhere and have a 20-minute turnaround time, but most school testing programs still rely on tests processed in labs, which return results in a day or two.
To make rapid tests more affordable, big retailers like WalMart and Kroger have agreed to sell them at a 35% discount for the next three months. But the cheapest test — Abbott’s BinaxNOW — would still sell for about $15 for a two-pack, out of reach for some families looking to frequently test themselves.
Other tests will cost $35 or more even after the discount.
The White House also announced that it is doubling the number of pharmacies in the federal government’s free testing program to 20,000 local pharmacies — almost double from when Biden took office.