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Biden under pressure as Covid test supplies dry up

America Letter: Corporate America beginning to offer testing to staff as a wellness benefit

A common sight on the front doors of pharmacies around Washington (and elsewhere in America) over recent weeks has been a sign advising customers that home Covid test kits are not available.

The massive surge in Omicron cases as well as the spiralling numbers of those who fear they may have contracted the virus has simply overwhelmed supply lines.

There are public distribution facilities offering Covid tests but queues can be long and supplies stretched. In one instance in Bethesda, Maryland near Washington DC this week a centre opened at 4pm. About 30 minutes later it had run out of rapid test kits.

There are also private centres offering Covid-19 tests. However, they are expensive. One person known to this correspondent paid $95 for a rapid antigen test at a facility in Georgetown in Washington last week.

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The whole issue is an embarrassment for the White House.

As a presidential candidate Joe Biden had promised that under his watch: "Anyone who wants a test should be able to get one, period."

However, the sudden emergence of the Omicron variant and its rapid spread around America changed the whole dynamic.

The Biden administration has promised to deliver 500 million tests to Americans but the process is not expected to get under way until later this month. On Thursday the president indicated he was seeking to source an additional half billion tests.

Additional tests

While a billion tests sounds (and is) enormous, there are more than 331 million people living in the United States. However, the private sector is also now becoming involved.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that some of the largest companies in the country are now putting their own testing arrangements in place for staff, and that at-home testing has become the latest wellness benefit to be offered by corporate America.

"Google will send full-time employees in the United States free at-home tests that deliver results within minutes and retail for more than $70 each," it said.

It also maintained that at JPMorgan Chase, bankers could order at-home rapid tests from an internal company site.

The Biden administration is also making health insurance companies, who provide cover for millions of Americans, offer Covid-19 tests as part of their plans.

From Saturday, insurance companies will be required to cover eight over-the-counter at-home Covid tests per person each month. The administration argued that a family of four covered by the same plan would now be able to get 32 tests each month.

The White House also said there would be no limit to the number of Covid-19 tests, including at-home tests, that insurers must cover if they were ordered or administered by a healthcare provider.

Accountability

Given the problems being experienced by Americans in securing tests, Biden's critics are now seeking accountability for the massive Covid funds sanctioned by Congress earlier this year.

This week US senator Roy Blunt, the top Republican on the Senate appropriations sub-committee on health and human services, said Congress had allocated $80 billion for Covid-19 testing.

“We’ve lost track, I think, of how much money a billion dollars or a trillion dollars or $80 billion is. But the administration has had $80 billion. Over half of it, $47 billion, they got in March in the American Rescue Plan. This is supposed to cover everything from research and development of new rapid tests to manufacturing and purchase of these tests to funding for state and local governments to distribute these tests.

“And here we are nine months later, and we are concerned that we don’t have tests because we don’t have enough tests. For the last month, Americans have faced long lines at testing centres. They’ve gone to places where they thought they could purchase a rapid test to find empty shelves.

“How could we possibly have had $80 billion available for a minimum of nine months, and now we’re back in a testing problem?”

The White House argues that on foot of its investments last year, the scale of production has increased dramatically from below 30 million tests per month last summer to about 300 million at present. It projects the figure could reach 350-400 million tests from next month.

However, even this ramped-up level of production over recent months was insufficient to deal with the surge in demand that started just before Christmas generated by the much more transmissible Omicron variant.

It remains to be seen how long it will take supply to catch up and for how long the pharmacies will have signs advising that they are sold out of Covid-19 tests.