Remember back when tRump said that anybody who wanted to get tested for Covid-19 could get tested? Remember his latest bonkers freak show about the US being number one in testing? Here’s the reality in WA. The reality is JUST a bit different.
According to the Seattle Times today we’re getting piecemeal shipments of kit parts — some assembly and plenty of scavenging required:
Washington’s reliance on the federal government’s shipments of supplies to drastically increase coronavirus testing is running into a new challenge: test kit assembly.
As new federal shipments of nasal swabs and other supplies trickle into the state in piecemeal fashion, state officials are scrambling to gather missing items necessary to complete testing kits.
“The state will have to do some work to find all the necessary items and to get everything packaged together,” said Reed Schuler, a senior adviser to Gov. Jay Inslee. “That’s going to require significant labor, so that’s another possible bottleneck.”
Swabs come in, the transport media comes in, bags come in — Gov. Inslee has assembled a 25 person squad from our National Guard to assemble complete kits. The plan is to expand the assembly line as more material comes in (if it does). We’re supposed to get 580K swabs this month and next, but only enough of the transport media for ¾ of the swabs — and our first delivery was only 37K swabs. We’re trying to get enough supplies for 20-30 thousand tests per day and we’re only at 3,555 kits issued per day as of this past weekend. No mention of our analysis capabilities — how many tests can be processed per day?
Adm. Giroir says the administration is “confident that our nation has a clear and sustainable pathway to meet… future testing needs” — through June, anyway. Then we are on our own — but don’t worry, he encouraged us to seek supplies through a “robust” commercial market. But hey, the administration is “prepared to work with the states moving forward”.