In New York, a group of 30 National Guard soldiers and airmen working out of an old National Guard Armory building on the campus of the Sage College of Albany have helped assemble 328,650 coronavirus tests to date.
The massive test assembly and the Guard’s role in conducting nearly 6,000 tests per day across 10 drive-up test centers is part of what New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said will get his state to the reopening process. But first, he said he needs the federal government to help acquire more tests, an agreement he said he made with President Trump this week.
“Testing is the best way to inform and educate yourself as you go through the reopening process,” Cuomo said Tuesday after meeting with President Trump at the White House and declaring a partnership with the federal government to double testing in his state.
Since the first test site opened in New Rochelle in mid-March, the Guard has helped to test more than 105,000 of the estimated 670,000 New Yorkers tested.
New York is not alone in using the Guard to support widespread testing. California, Florida, Connecticut, and others employ Guard members to conduct thousands of coronavirus tests.
Some 43,700 of the National Guard’s 450,000 members have thus far been activated across the country as part of the coronavirus response as of Friday. Guard members are distributing food and delivering personal protective equipment to hospitals.
Testing has nonetheless been scarce nationally, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting 2.3 million tests conducted since March 1. In that time, the COVID-19 pandemic became a national crisis, effectively shuttering millions indoors and cratering the economy.
Until there is a vaccine, widespread testing will be necessary for people to get out again, said coronavirus task force members and governors across the country. The Guard is helping swab patients at nursing homes and drive-through test sites across the country.
In New York, 10 Army medics or Air National Guard medical technicians assist with swabbing patients, while another 30 personnel manage tasks such as directing traffic at each site.
Currently, New York is averaging about 20,000 tests per day in a population of just under 20 million.
“Our goal is to double the 20,000 to get to 40,000 tests per day. We need several weeks to ramp up to that, but it is a very aggressive goal,” Cuomo said after his meeting with Trump.
The assembly of test kits is limited only by the components available to the state. But there’s a problem with the supply chain, which is where Cuomo said Trump has agreed to step in.
The Defense Production Act allows the federal government, in an emergency, to compel private companies to produce urgently needed items, such as Trump’s March 27 order to General Motors to make ventilators.
The Korean War-era law allows taxpayer money to be invested in a company so that it can ramp up or modify its production capacity for a needed item, such as when the DOD made a $133 million investment to increase N95 mask production capability at 3M, O&M Halyard, and Honeywell on April 11.
Cuomo said that manufacturers need federal government help to produce more test kits.
“The national manufacturers have said they have a problem with the supply chain to quickly ramp up those tests,” Cuomo said.
At a Monday Pentagon briefing, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord said test kit production was among the areas of focus for Defense Production Act Title III investments, saying that Air Force Maj. Gen. Lee Payne is leading the effort, but she gave no word on progress made.
“I’m not going to talk about actual numbers right now,” she said.
The Washington Examiner made multiple requests over the past two weeks to the Defense Logistics Agency for an update on test kit production and the Defense Health Agency to speak to Payne about test kit production before receiving a one-line response on Friday.
“DoD continues to work through the interagency to best support the needs of the nation,” wrote DOD spokeswoman Jessica Maxwell in an email.
The Defense Logistics Agency reported on Friday that 730,600 test components have been purchased and distributed to the military and federal agencies.
Guard units like those in New York are assembling those components, but nationwide coronavirus testing stands at just 150,000 per day.
“They have been doing a phenomenal number of these things,” Eric Durr, director of public affairs for the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs, told the Washington Examiner. “They are assembling these kits and packaging them, and then they get sent out across the state for use.”
Cuomo said he would gladly buy more test kits if the federal government helps to produce them.
“That is where the federal government can help,” he said. “Let the federal government take responsibility for that federal supply chain for the national manufacturers. That’s what we agreed in this meeting.”
