White House COVID-19 testing warrant could overwhelm already strained suppliers

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September 9 (Reuters) – A White House plan to force COVID-19 vaccination or repeat testing for around two-thirds of U.S. workers announced Thursday could be hampered by supply issues as manufacturers of COVID tests -19 strive to keep pace with demand.

US President Joe Biden will require all federal employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and the US Department of Labor will issue a rule requiring private companies with more than 100 employees to vaccinate or test their workers every week, announced Thursday. officials. Read more

About 25% of the estimated 255 million Americans aged 18 and over have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to federal data.

The White House has said it will spend nearly $ 2 billion on 280 million rapid COVID-19 tests to help increase supply, but industry experts doubt manufacturers can produce tests quickly enough to respect the mandate of the administration.

The U.S. testing industry can currently only produce around 50 million rapid COVID-19 tests each month, said Vijay Kumar, an analyst at Evercore ISI which covers medical technology companies.

That’s just enough tests to cover around 12 million people who take weekly tests.

The White House said Thursday it would use a wartime law known as the Defense Production Act to help test makers access needed supplies.

“It must be a priority to increase the availability of tests,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore.

“Rapid tests should have been available from the start of this pandemic and the shortages are now unacceptable. “

America’s largest manufacturers of rapid COVID-19 tests – Becton Dickinson and Co (BDX.N), Quidel Corp (QDEL.O) and Abbott Laboratories (ABT.N) – did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the announcement from the White House.

The Advanced Medical Technology Association, a trade group for testers, told Reuters that supplies of rapid point-of-care tests continue to scale up to meet demand, although laboratory testing capacity is strong.

He added that he sent a letter to the administration in September requesting additional support for test production.

U.S. companies have already made efforts to deliver the COVID-19 tests requested by K-12 schools across the country as they roll out surveillance programs for the new school year. Read more

CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) recently placed limits on the number of home tests customers can purchase.

The shortages were made worse because testers shut down production lines earlier this year when demand for testing appeared to be slowing and COVID-19 cases were on the decline.

Manufacturers have warned that supplies may be limited in the short term.

“We were seeing unprecedented demand as case rates increased,” Abbott told Reuters in a statement in August. “There will be supply constraints over the next few weeks as the increase in capacity comes online.”

Kumar said testers also need more clarity on how the new mandate will be funded, noting that it is not clear whether employers will have to shoulder some of the costs.

The supply problem “will not be resolved until test suppliers have some visibility into demand,” Kumar said.

Reporting by Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Caroline Humer and Sonya Hepinstall

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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