Some states say they are having a difficult time getting their hands on rapid Covid-19 tests following the US federal government’s plan to send at-home test kits to households across the country.
“We did order millions more and we’re expecting a huge shipment this week and all of our vendors called us late Friday to say that the White House’s announcement on Friday had frozen all the orders and that they were taking all the tests that were going to go to us and the other states,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, said Wednesday at the end of his annual budget announcement.
Hogan said he raised the issue “pretty forcefully” on a call with the White House earlier this week. “Multiple other governors, both parties, agreed that they were having the same problem and we’re trying to get the White House to address it,” he said.
The White House is disputing this claim.
“We have not taken a single contract away from anyone,” a senior administration official told CNN Thursday morning, explaining that there is a stipulation in contracts the federal government is signing that procurements cannot interrupt or interference with other federal, state or commercial orders for over-the-counter tests.
Instead, the official cited a fast-moving situation where states and the federal government are both actively trying to secure tests as a reason for the confusion and miscommunication.
In Ohio, Charles Patterson, Clark County Ohio Combined Health District Commissioner, told CNN on Thursday that the county will run out of free at-home test kits today after the state health department cut off their supply days ago because the manufacturer couldn’t fill their order. The state didn’t specify why, but Patterson said, “It doesn’t take much to put two and two together,” as it timed out as the federal government was ramping up supply of the same brand of tests.
Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told CNN on Thursday that “we have heard some states are not getting their full supplies,” but he added that the US Department of Health and Human Services has said “states should hold suppliers accountable, as the federal contracts required suppliers to prioritize existing orders before selling to the federal program.”
Additionally, “the White House assured that the new testing supplies were separate supplies from the standard chain and would not disrupt existing orders or future orders,” Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN on Thursday.
President Biden announced his plan to make half a billion Covid-19 rapid tests available to Americans by mail last month as the Omicron variant surges across the US. The website where households can order their tests launched this week.
“The new program to mail tests out to people directly — they didn’t produce any new tests, they just took all the tests off the shelf that we were supposed to get on trucks to come here,” Hogan said.
Tom Inglesby, senior adviser to the White House’s Covid-19 response team, rebutted Hogan’s claim during a call with reporters, including The Washington Post.
The federal program to distribute the tests “is specifically not allowed, by contract, to take away tests from state governments or U.S. commercial operations,” Inglesby said. “By contract, that program cannot interfere with state, local or U.S. commercial operations.”