Lines form for Covid testing in Times Square in New York on Tuesday, December 21, 2021. (ÂPhoto by Richard B. Levine)
NY: New York during the COVID-19 pandemic
WASHINGTON DC (77WABC) – Vanity Fair is reporting that the Biden administration passed on an October proposal that would’ve prevented a covid-19 testing crunch right before the holidays.
The bombshell report comes just days after President Biden announced Americans would soon receive 500 million free at home covid tests. Meantime, the New York Times reports that contracts have yet to be signed, therefore it could be several months before anyone receives the tests.
The Vanity Fair report states that the October proposal was pitched by a group of COVID-19 testing experts from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Rockefeller Foundation, the COVID Collaborative and several other organizations pitched a 10-page plan to White House officials on Oct. 22.
The group sought to avert this year’s holiday COVID testing crunch by manufacturing more than 700 million tests each month. Long lines to continue to wrap around New York City blocks, many urgent cares have also shut down amid a surge in testing.
The 10-page plan, which Vanity Fair has obtained, would enable the U.S. to finally do what many other countries had already done: Put rapid at-home COVID-19 testing into the hands of average citizens, allowing them to screen themselves in real time and thereby help reduce transmission. The plan called for an estimated 732 million tests per month, a number that would require a major ramp-up of manufacturing capacity. It also recommended, right on the first page, a nationwide “Testing Surge to Prevent Holiday COVID Surge.”
