Officials were
scheduled to discuss expanding drive-through testing sites, involving
private companies as well as state and local health departments, in a
meeting at the White House Friday, according to three individuals
familiar with the effort.
Representatives
from Target, Walgreens, Walmart and CVS, as well as commercial
diagnostic labs and manufacturers, were slated to attend, according to a
senior administration official involved in the response.
The Trump
administration announced the measures a day after receiving a harsh
drubbing on Capitol Hill. At one House hearing, Antony Fauci, longtime
director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged the U.S. testing system is
“not really geared to what we need right now … That is a failing. Let’s
admit it.”
Democratic and
Republican lawmakers have repeatedly pressed administration health
officials on why the U.S. has not set up a model similar to that in
South Korea — a country with a huge covid-19 outbreak — in which
drive-through testing sites do not require a doctor’s prescription and
results are available rapidly. At one hearing on Thursday, Sen. Ben
Sasse (R-Neb.) called on officials to “get to the bottom of why those
problems are there.”
Another senior
administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk
candidly, said the concern now is less about the supply of tests than
whether Americans can find easy and convenient places to get tested.
Another concern is setting up testing sites so that they don’t expose
health workers and others to the virus.
“The problem
we’re experience is there is a surplus of lab tests available, but those
labs and state and public health departments are not setting up
effective mechanisms to get people testing,” the official said, adding,
“there is no reason” states cannot “set up a drive-through … a clinic in
a parking lot” for patients to be swabbed and specimens shipped off to
labs to determine the results.
For that
reason, “we are trying to help leverage the private sector,” the
official said, declining to identify any companies involved in the
effort.
The official
said that in South Korea, people must first call a phone number and
answer a series of screening questions to determining whether they
should get tested. If approved, the person drives to a testing site,
fills out a questionnaire and, if approved after answering those
questions, gets a test.
The
administration’s push to boost drive-through testing comes as several
places around the country have begun offering such services. Mayo Clinic
opened such a facility this week, according to Jack O’Horo, a Mayo
infections disease specialist. “This helps to protect other patients and
staff from potentially coming into contact with the covid-19 virus,” he
said.
New Rochelle, a New York suburb that has been designated a coronavirus
containment zone after an outbreak there, on Friday became the first
East Coast site of drive-though testing. Residents can make appointments
by phone and then be tested from their cars in a six-lane site set up
by the state’s health department. Swabs are sent to BioReference
Laboratory, which will contact people with their results.
Colorado’s
health department also has launched a drive-through site in Denver,
requiring patients to bring a doctor’s note saying they need a test.
Such sites also are available in Oahu, Hawaii and Hartford, Conn.
In other
measures the administration announced early Friday, the Food and Drug
Administration has created a 24-hour emergency hotline for laboratories
having difficulty getting materials or finding other impediments to
running tests, according to announcements early on Friday.
Officials also
announced they were giving nearly $1.3 million in federal money to two
companies trying to develop rapid covid-19 tests that could determine
whether a person is infected within an hour.
In addition,
the Department of Health and Human Services assigned Brett Giroir, the
assistant secretary for health, to coordinate all covid-19 testing
efforts among federal public health agencies, including the FDA, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as state and local
health departments and public and private clinical laboratories.
The senior
administration official said that Health and Human Services Secretary
Alex Azar “has been frustrated by the timeliness and accuracy of
information regarding testing from the CDC.”
After more than
a month in which tests themselves were show to become available, the
official said that 4.8 million have now been distributed.
The FDA also is
giving New York state the ability to authorize certain public and
private labs to test for the virus under the aegis of the state health
department, without first getting federal approval.
Earlier this
week, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) announced he was moving ahead to
contract with 28 private labs in New York. “We’re not in a position
where we can rely on the CDC or the FDA to manage this testing
protocol,” the governor said.
Cuomo said that
he told the private labs they should “get up, get running and start
moving forward with testing.” The state’s health department has a
preexisting relationship with these labs, which Cuomo says has the
experience with virology to get the testing done.
In addition,
the FDA authorized a covid-19 test developed by the manufacturer Roche,
making it the third diagnostic test approved for use in the outbreak.
Another senior
administration official said they were starting to collect data from
private laboratories on the number of tests they performed daily. The
administration has been repeatedly criticized for knowing the volume of
tests performed by the CDC but not a nationwide total from all the state
and local and hospital labs involved in coronavirus testing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/under-heavy-fire-trump-administration-takes-steps-to-expand-coronavirus-testing/2020/03/13/f86b481e-6525-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html
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