Public health experts were appalled to hear that the idea of making at- home rapid antigen tests for Covid-19 free for all Americans was dismissed as ridiculous by the press secretary of the president.
The president's spokesman wrongly suggested that the tests used in other countries were the same as those sent to anyone who asked for them. Psaki claimed that the U.S. had gotten some retailers to lower costs and that private insurance companies would soon have to reimburse clients who buy rapid tests.
Many are mocking this out of touch take by Press Sec on Covid tests, but for me it is the cost that matters.
>
The tests should be the same.
>
Craig Spencer MPH MD is on December 7, 2021.
Liasson said that it was kind of complicated. Make them free and give them out so they can be found everywhere.
Should we send one to every American? Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.
Liasson said that maybe.
If every American takes a test, what will happen? How much does that cost? It was suggested that it would be expensive to send Americans tests to screen for the virus.
The experts who pushed for the Biden administration to flood the country with free rapid tests to find cases that are not related to the virus were angry that the president's spokesman suggested that the initiative would be too costly.
She seems to imply that the insurance reimbursement plan won't come close to doing that by dismissing the idea of sending every American a rapid test due to cost. The administration was placing barriers in front of people by not simply buying tests for everyone, as Nuzzo complained to The Hill. She said that the most preferable option would be to make them free or close to free so that people could pick them up.
A professor of epidemiology at Yale Medical School wrote on his website that rapid tests are hard to get and could be a key intervention in fighting Covid-19. Other countries have found better ways to get these tools into the hands of their citizens. Do better.
Do you want to give out rapid tests to every household? Yessss! Of course, we should. Oni Blackstock, a doctor who once led New York City's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, chimed in. It's concerning that this appears to be a quixotic idea to the administration, and a reminder of why we have not been able to control this epidemic here in the US.
Michael Mina, a physician who teaches at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, estimated a year ago that the spread of Covid-19 could be stopped if half of the US population tested themselves every four days.
Read our complete coverage of the coronaviruses crisis.
Mina suggested that the administration is unwilling to take emergency measures to fight the coronaviruses because they are not interested in changing the for-profit health care system. At some point our FDA, CDC and administration will understand that this is a public health problem and not a medical problem to make money off of. Maybe.
The comments accidentally drew attention to the fact that Americans are paying more for health care than their counterparts in countries with socialized medicine.
The U.S. government should use its leverage to get test-makers to sell the kits for between $1 and $5. Because the Biden administration has tried to work within the constraints of America's profit-driven system, commercially available rapid tests are more expensive for consumers and hard to find in stores. The government can purchase the kit for $5, but consumers can pay $11.98 for a test at a drugstore.
Europe has a more efficient government-run health care system than the U.S., but the U.S. government is hesitant to use emergency powers to get the testing kits made for less.
In September, the Biden administration struck a deal with Walmart, Amazon and Kroger to sell Abbott's tests at a discount for three months. The British government is paying about $5.80 each for similar test kits that it distributes for free.
The Covid-19 rapid test kits are free in the United Kingdom.
The photo is from Mike Kemp/In Pictures.
According to the British government, about 4 million rapid tests are being done at home each week in England, because of the distribution of free tests and a public information campaign. If you test positive for the virus on a rapid test, you are told to take a lab-processed test to confirm the diagnosis and not spread it. The tests show that the rapid tests are accurate about 90 percent of the time.
The country's health authorities have a better idea of how many of their citizens are affected by the disease because the National Health Service makes it easy to report home test results.
In Germany, the government used its buying power to offer rapid tests to the public for less than $1 each, as part of a drive to encourage people to get vaccinations instead of relying on cheap tests. Germans can get high-quality face masks that work as well as N95s for $1.50 each.
Canada provides rapid tests to businesses for free, unlike the U.S. where employers are struggling to buy enough tests to meet government mandates.
The FDA granted an emergency use authorization for the Flowflex test in October, which was made by a company in San Diego. The test is currently sold at a price of $9.99 in the U.S. The same American company's test was on offer for less than the price in the Netherlands last week.
ACON Laboratories' Flowflex Covid-19 rapid tests are on the shelves of a drug store in the Netherlands.
The photo was taken by Jeroen Jumelet/ANP.
The White House Covid-19 response coordination was asked to explain why the U.S. does not follow the lead of the U.K. The administration's plan was more nuanced than that, and it would be inefficient to mail tests to everyone since some might go unused.
The administration plans to send home tests for Americans with private health insurance for free once they pay the retail price and do the paperwork, which is what Biden had said in his speech last week, according to Zients.
The FDA approved 13 different rapid tests this year, according to the administration. With more competition, prices will come down, according to the language of the market.
Career scientists in the government agree that getting more Americans to use rapid tests would be a big advancement. Bruce Tromberg, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health, said in July that rapid antigen testing at home is a powerful and convenient way for individuals to screen for Covid-19 infections. With schools and businesses reopening, an individual's risk of infection can change. People can take action to prevent the spread of the virus with serial antigen testing.
Career scientists in the government agree that getting more Americans to use rapid tests would be a big advancement.
Health policy experts say that the recent federal investment of $3 billion is not enough to spur the production of enough rapid tests for all Americans. In October, the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that President Biden's recent announcement to quadruple supply of at- home tests by the end of the year by investing a total of $3 billion in rapid testing would lead to a supply of up to 200 million at- home tests.
The FDA approved the use of the Acon Laboratories Flowflex home test, and by February there would be a potential supply of 300 million rapid tests being produced in the U.S. The new U.S. investment would be less than one test per month per person in the US. We would need 2.3 billion tests per month if everyone was tested twice per week. 600 million tests per month would be needed if just half the US population were tested weekly.
The cost to consumers will have to plummet in order to reach that number of tests, but there is no plan by the Biden administration to force the companies that make the tests to lower their prices.
I did an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation. Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine doctor in New York who teaches public health at Columbia University, said that the host said that in the U.K. you can just walk into a pharmacy and pick up free tests. I told him that at- home tests in the US cost $8-$10 each, if you can find them, and I was not sure, but I think he exploded.
If you have private health insurance in the U.S., you may be able to submit the costs of some at- home tests to an insurance company for profit.
