White House announces $1 billion purchase of rapid, at-home coronavirus tests
Source: Washington Post
The White House announced Wednesday that it will buy $1 billion worth of rapid, at-home coronavirus tests to address ongoing shortages, a plan hailed by public health experts who called the move long overdue.
The actions will quadruple the number of tests available to Americans by December, according to Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator. The news follows Monday’s decision by the Food and Drug Administration to allow the sale of an antigen test from U.S.-based Acon Laboratories.
The White House expects that decision and the purchase of the additional tests will increase the number of at-home tests to 200 million per month by December.
“This is a big deal,” said Scott Becker, chief executive of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, who said the spotty availability of rapid tests had hampered efforts to track and combat the surge of coronavirus cases driven by the highly transmissible delta variant. “The White House is beginning to take testing as seriously as they’ve taken vaccinations.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/06/biden-rapid-at-home-covid-tests/?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=wired&utm_mailing=WIR_Science_100621&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9f8cb24c17c6adf0e5d24&cndid=25394153&esrc=bounceX&source=EDT_WIR_NEWSLETTER_0_SCIENCE_ZZ&mbid=mbid%3DCRMWIR012019%0A%0A&utm_content=A
