More than 500,000 coronavirus test kits are lying unused around the United States.
Deborah Birx expressed her frustration with cracks in the country’s comprehensive response to the coronavirus that has left hundreds of thousands of tests sitting unused while state governors complain about a lack of kits. Birx, who is coordinating the White House’s coronavirus response, said the number of unused test kits is at about 500,000 at a press conference on Tuesday.
“It is disappointing to me right now that we have about 500,000 capacity of [tests] that are not being utilized,” Birx said. “They are out. They are in the states. They are not being run and not utilized.”
Birx said that much of the confusion is due to changing processes of getting medical test kits to the states. State officials, comfortable with the earlier processes, are missing kits because they are unfamiliar with the new procedures or recent updates.
“So, now we have to figure out how do we create awareness because, sometimes, when you put an early platform out, … people get dependent on that and then don’t see that there’s availability of other tests,” Birx said. “So, right now, there are over half a million tests that are sitting, capacity, that are not being utilized.”
