INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
One month after President Trump declared a national emergency and announced commitments from some of the nation largest companies to help
expand testing capabilities in the U.S., most regions still lack access to the necessary tests and equipment they require.
When the
president stepped to the podium in the Rose Garden in March surrounded by executives from the country largest pharmacies and retailers,
including Target, Walmart, CVS and Walgreens, the expectation was that the nation would soon see an explosion in testing facilities that
could provide the kind of population-scale testing necessary to manage a nationwide outbreak.
President Trump also said at the time that a
team of 1,700 Google engineers was developing a triage tool to assess whether someone should be tested for COVID-19 and direct them to sites
where those tests could be administered.
The reality has fallen far short of those expectations
Google was not responsible for the development of the triage tool that the president described
The development effort was undertaken by another subsidiary of Google parent company, Alphabet, and had completed 3,700 tests by the end of
The company was able to set up four testing sites across California in two weeks.
Despite Trump claims, Google isn&t building the
coronavirus screening site — and it not ready
The efforts to make screening available at pharmacies around the country is also lagging
Last week, Walgreens said that it would be expanding its drive-through testing capabilities to 15 sites in seven states
That up from a single site at the end of March
Each site can test 3,000 people per day the company said
And CVS is expanding from a single site in Massachusetts to four sites with two in Massachusetts, and one each in Rhode Island and Georgia
Its sites have capacity to test 1,000 people per day.
Meanwhile, Target has not opened a single facility.
&At this time, federal, state and
local officials continue to lead the planning for additional testing sites,& a Target spokesperson told National Public Radio in a statement
&We stand committed to offering our parking lot locations and supporting their efforts when they are ready to activate.&
Both CVS and
Walgreens are using Abbott new ID NOW COVID-19 test, but neither company is testing at the scale that medical professionals have said is
appropriate to proceed with a broad re-opening of the U.S
economy (which is something that some pundits were advocating for as soon as early May).
In fact, the speed of testing lags across the
country in both state and private facilities, in part because only the people who are presenting with severe COVID-19 symptoms are getting
tested for the disease.
As Vox reported over the weekend, the U.S
has tested at 74% the rate of South Korea — where testing and tracing has largely kept the outbreak from becoming too severe — and is
not even approaching the level of testing of other hard-hit countries like Canada, Germany, and Italy.
Part of the problem is a lack of the
necessary equipment to perform tests at the scale required
States are racing to find vital personal protective equipment for the healthcare workers most at risk of exposure to COVID-19, but they&re
also running out of the equipment they need to test patients.
Just today the Los Angeles Times reported that New York may run out of the
testing swabs it needs.&It still an atmosphere of tremendous scarcity,& the Times quoted Mayor Bill de Blasio saying
&I spoke with the president and other key members of the administration … this is the crucial need.&
Earlier today Ford announced a
partnership with Thermo Fisher aimed at reducing shortages of test kits, and personal protective equipment, but it far from the only company
to begin working on that particular shortage
Last month, privately held 3D printing technology developers like Carbon, Markforged, and FormLabs all announced efforts to begin
manufacturing both personal protective equipment and the needed test swabs to conduct COVID-19 testing.
Ford partners with Thermo Fisher on
COVID-19 collection kits, expands production to face masks, gowns
But even with more swabs, there may not be enough testing capacity to
meet increased demand.
Already, Quest Diagnostics, one of the private testing firms that process COVID-19 tests, has a two-day backlog of
cases, according to its latest statement on testing.
Quest, LabCorp and the lobbying group that represents them in Washington have
approached the White House about providing more support to increase their ability to test people who are potentially infected, according to
an NPR report.
In early March, the companies approached the government with three requests: funding to build new facilities for testing;
standards to ensure that testing is conducted appropriately and administered to the right people; and support to receive the necessary
supplies to conduct tests
To date, the companies haven&t received that guidance or support, according to NPR.
Testing remains the lynchpin for any successful attempts
to successfully contain the spread of COVID-19, according to a Duke University report co-authored by Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA
commissioner and partner at the multi-billion dollar venture capital New Enterprise Associates.
&The capacity to conduct rapid diagnostic
testing for everyone with COVID-19 symptoms and those with exposures or at higher risk of contracting or transmitting the virus (health care
workers, those in congregate settings), with a robust sentinel surveillance system that routinely monitors for infection among samples of
the population to enable early identification of small outbreaks, particularly in vulnerable populations,& is the first step of any
successful containment plan, according to the study.
Even the efforts by Google and Apple to develop a contact tracing technology need to be
supported by more robust testing capacity.
Apple and Google are launching a joint COVID-19 tracing tool for iOS and Android
So far, the
hasn&t even been able to meet the testing goals that the president had set in the Rose Garden
&It&ll going very quickly,& he said of the approval process for new tests
&It going very quickly — which will bring, additionally, 1.4 million tests on board next week and 5 million within a month
I doubt we&ll need anywhere near that.&
On that Friday in March when the president made his Rose Garden address, 2,006 people had tested
positive for the disease and 42 people had died.
To date, the U.S
has performed 2.935 million tests, with 576,774 positive cases, 2,358,232 negative cases, and 17,159 cases waiting approval
And 23,369 people in the U.S
have died from the disease.
