President Joe Biden is closing out his first year in office facing one of the same problems he entered the White House vowing to fix: a persistent shortage of Covid-19 testing that, if resolved, could provide a way out of the still-raging pandemic.

Pathetic.

The inability to secure enough timely tests for the number of people who want them has led to a new reckoning for Biden's Covid-19 response. An enhanced strategy that includes distributing 500 million free at-home tests didn't come in time to prevent major disruptions to holiday travel, and it remains unclear when those tests will reach Americans who want them.

Yet the failures surrounding testing have led to accusations that the White House failed to anticipate the pandemic's course and overemphasized vaccinations as a solution to ending the crisis, even as outside experts warned of a looming test shortage directly to administration officials.

The agency did not recommend a negative test as part of the conditions for ending isolation; instead, the new recommendation is that those without symptoms can end their isolation after five days instead of 10, and wear a mask for the ensuing five days.

The step was a boon for businesses, including major airlines, which had been forced to dramatically scale back their business as employees tested positive and were unavailable to work for 10 days. Carriers including JetBlue and Delta Air Lines had lobbied the administration to shorten the isolation period for positive cases; Delta asked to cut it to five days specifically.

While the CDC said the change was "motivated by science" in its announcement Monday night, officials did not deny that a concern the Omicron wave could effectively "shut down society" had also played a role, according to one senior official. "We need people to get back to their jobs," the official said.

Speaking on CNN, Fauci said it was imperative to ensure essential personnel were able to continue working. "With the sheer volume of new cases that we are having and that we expect to continue with Omicron, one of the things we want to be careful of is that we don't have so many people out," Fauci said Monday night on CNN. "If you are asymptomatic and you are infected, we want to get people back to the jobs -- particularly those with essential jobs -- to keep our society running smoothly."

The conversations among officials included weighing the availability of tests, one official said, along with the imperative of allowing businesses to continue operating amid the surge. "I was very surprised that there was not a testing requirement to come out of isolation," said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist who served on Biden's coronavirus task force during the transition. "Symptoms are really not a good way of determining if someone is infectious or not."

Like other medical experts who have been critical of the updated guidance, Gounder argued it is "irresponsible" to halve the isolation period without requiring a negative antigen test.

it's just...not fixable. No incrementalism can ever fix this.

  • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I forgot about that

    Q And I have one quick question on testing. Last week, obviously, the President explained some ramp-up in testing, but there are still a lot of countries, like Germany and the UK and South Korea, that basically have massive testing, free of charge or for a nominal fee. Why can’t that be done in the United States?

    MS. PSAKI: Well, I would say, first, you know, we have eight tests that have been approved by the FDA here. We see that as the gold standard. Whether or not all of those tests would meet that standard is a question for the scientists and medical experts, but I don’t suspect they would.

    Our objective is to continue to increase accessibility and decrease costs. And if you look at what we’ve done over the course of time, we’ve quadrupled the size of our testing plan, we’ve cut the cost significantly over the past few months, and this effort to push — to ensure — ensures you’re able to get your tests refunded means 150 million Americans will be able to get free tests.

    Q That’s kind of complicated though. Why not just make them free and give them out to — and have them available everywhere?

    MS. PSAKI: Should we just send one to every American? (this line said with a smirk)

    Q Maybe. I’m just asking you — there are other countries —

    MS. PSAKI: Then what — then what happens if you — if every American has one test? How much does that cost, and then what happens after that?

    Q I don’t know. All I know is that other countries seem to be making them available for — in greater quantities, for less money.

    MS. PSAKI: Well, I think we share the same objective, which is to make them less expensive and more accessible. Right?

    Every country is going to do that differently. And I was just noting that, again, our tests go through the FDA approval process. That’s not the same process that — it doesn’t work that way in every single country. But what we’re working to do here is build on what we’ve done to date and continue to build out our testing capacity, because, Mara, we absolutely recognize that this is a key component of fighting the virus.

    No wonder libs like her, she's such an assured, smug, asshole