America’s COVID testing program was unprepared for a surge in demand for tests. MrJDWalsh reports on when the country will get out of this testing hell
When Lex Perez-Gonzalez left work on Monday, he joined a long line of people waiting to get a rapid COVID test on 125th Street in Harlem. Perez-Gonzalez, 32, planned to join a friend’s Christmas gathering in Connecticut later this week, and he wanted to make sure he was negative well in advance of traveling. But 45 minutes after arriving, he still hadn’t moved. When he walked up to the front of the line, a woman told him she’d been waiting for three hours.
As for the rapid at-home tests, they’re rarer than a subway seat at rush hour. Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart on Tuesday responded to bare shelves by capping the number of at-home tests consumers could buy. If you can find one, it will set you back about $24 — or $100 for a family of four. Meanwhile, in the U.K., the government has been mailing free tests to anyone who requests them online. Nearly every pharmacy is well stocked.“I certainly hope so.
Both Krager and Aspinall recommended anyone who can find at-home rapid antigen tests to use them in advance of holiday gatherings to screen for COVID, especially if they will be near someone who is vulnerable to severe illness, such as the unvaccinated. In short, smoke ’em if you got ’em. “Since the over-the-counter tests became available in March, there has been little interest in them. The fact that Americans now want an answer in real time, that is a significant cultural shift,” said Aspinall. “Information from tests is power. Everybody wants to take the power away from the virus and put it in their own hands. That’s what testing enables us to do.”
Last year, Bhojwani outlined a path to scaling up testing in a series of articles for Harvard Business Review. His initial vision, co-written with Atul Gawande, included a call for local, state, and federal governments to buy tests en masse. While Bhojwani’s plan was never fully realized, he’s hopeful that the federal government’s purchase of half a billion tests will lead to lower production costs, which will in turn lead to greater availability of cheaper tests.
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