COVID Test/Testing & Vaccine Availability

[SuperMatt]

In other news:

The Biden Administration Rejected an October Proposal for “Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays”

With omicron cases spreading like wildfire, the White House is finally taking steps to make free antigen tests available to all. But this fall, Vanity Fair has learned, it dismissed a bold plan to ramp up rapid testing ahead of the holidays. Frustrated experts explain how confusion, distrust...

www.vanityfair.com

Ugh… seriously?!

Evidently in late October the federal government turned down a plan to acquire roughly three-quarters of a million tests per month because they didn’t want people to think testing is a substitute for vaccinations. Right, but I’m pretty sure the people unwilling to vaccinate are also unlikely to test at home and test proactively. This is bad policy with no foresight. The lack of preparedness is bad enough on the part of the government. Willful unpreparedness is even worse.

Did you prefer the Trump policy of mocking those wearing masks and telling people it was just the flu, and even testing positive, then not telling anybody despite going to the debate and the SCOTUS nomination party?

Just wondering if you think Biden has been better than Trump so far.

Biden hasn’t been perfect, but he’s been massively better than Trump IMHO. And vaccines should be a higher priority than tests. A test doesn’t prevent or cure anything, although it is a useful too, for telling people when they should isolate.

 

[fischersd]

I only blame the government for allowing profiteering off of this. A few days ago I went on amazon (I Know) to look for home rapid tests. A shop there was selling ten tests for $950.00 and one for $99.00! I reported them to amazon and stated that the tests should only cost $12 a piece at the most. When I checked back yesterday they were still selling them.

Yep, I get you - but price gouging is the Amazon way. I've seen grocery items here sold for more than 10x their price in the retail stores (guessing they're taking advantage of Canadians living abroad, wanting flavours of home).

Also, Bezos is an evil bastard - I'm sure he's set / encouraging these policies.

And, a little more on topic - our local province hasn't yet invested in making rapid tests available - and our testing centres are overwhelmed, so we KNOW our daily case counts are way higher than what's being reported. The 5th wave (at least for case counts) is making the others seem like ripples in a pond.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Did you prefer the Trump policy of mocking those wearing masks and telling people it was just the flu, and even testing positive, then not telling anybody despite going to the debate and the SCOTUS nomination party?

Just wondering if you think Biden has been better than Trump so far.

Biden hasn’t been perfect, but he’s been massively better than Trump IMHO. And vaccines should be a higher priority than tests. A test doesn’t prevent or cure anything, although it is a useful too, for telling people when they should isolate.

Ummm no. As a healthcare provider my concern is for the public’s needs being met. I could care less who is in charge, rather that whoever is in charge is ensuring resources are available (and is providing accurate information).

I think the Biden administration was for the most part handling this as good as possible up until this omicron surge.

Regarding Trump, on a technical level I think things were handled as good as could be for a novel pandemic and the entire public healthcare system being completely unprepared. That said, from a messaging/PR standpoint- absolutely atrocious. My other gripe would be the nonsensical state vs state bidding that was going on. Some of that appears to be continuing right now with states trying to procure rapid tests.

To some extent, a lot of these problems fall on the CDC and FDA as they are the ones advising. I don’t expect politicians to be medical professionals or epidemiologists.

Regarding the FDA and testing specifically, they bungled getting out an effective PCR test in the beginning. With the rapid tests, they have made it very hard to get approval. I have a friend at Roche pharma who said they developed a very good rapid test about a year ago. The FDA rejected the test however because a lot of the studies were done outside the US. Roche can resubmit data after doing further clinical trials in the US, but then they get pushed to the end of the line for the FDA to review their new application…. Despite being one of the companies most able to mass produce tests quickly.

There is obviously a need to have these tests validated, but I’m not sure why the location of the trials has any bearing on the validity of the test. Europe has a bunch of approved tests that we don’t have for the same reason. And the benefit of many tests is not only for supply, but also cost. That’s why we’re paying 4x+ the cost versus many other parts of the world.

It would also be nice if the tests were able to be processed directly through insurance at pharmacies, just like a prescription. That way people don’t have to buy the test and then send the receipt into the insurance, and 2 months later maybe get their money back. I’m sure insurers lobbied against that with the hope people won’t submit for reimbursement.

Anyways, if anyone needs tests I can point you in the direction of where they are available. You have to plan way ahead though right now.

 

[SuperMatt]

Regarding Trump, on a technical level I think things were handled as good as could be for a novel pandemic and the entire public healthcare system being completely unprepared.

The national ventilator stockpile disaster is one huge example of things NOT being "handled as good as could be."

The Government Accountability Office strongly disagrees with the above assertion too.

COVID-19: Critical Vaccine Distribution, Supply Chain, Program Integrity, and Other Challenges Require Focused Federal Attention

This review of the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic is our fifth comprehensive report since June 2020 about the implementation of the CARES...

www.gao.gov

And don’t forget, Trump fired the pandemic response team in 2018 to save a little bit of money.

Did Trump Administration Fire the US Pandemic Response Team?

As a new coronavirus spread in 2020, so did concerns about the United States' preparedness for a potential pandemic.

www.snopes.com

I could go on, but the failures of the administration can be summed up by the fact that we had more COVID-19 deaths than any other country in the world. Yes, “messaging” played a part, but the technical response was abysmal.

It seems to me that you’re looking at the 2020 pandemic response through some very rose-colored glasses. To say we did “as good as could be” when literally every country on the planet responded better than us... well I just don’t know what to say to that.

 

[JayMysteri0]

Seems you can order free tests from the USPS already.

It isn't listed anywhere on the "front" of the site, but here's a link for ordering

COVID Home Tests | USPS

COVID Home Tests | USPS

special.usps.com

 

[Runs For Fun]

Seems you can order free tests from the USPS already.

It isn't listed anywhere on the "front" of the site, but here's a link for ordering

Interesting. Just placed my order!

 

[DT]

Get Four Free At-⁠Home COVID-⁠19 Tests This Fall

Every home in the U.S. is eligible to order an additional 4 free at-⁠home tests beginning November 20. If you did not order tests this fall, you may place two orders for a total of 8 tests.

www.covidtests.gov

Used that a few hours ago, got 4 coming

(Same, but different ...)

Oh I see that just links over to the USPS, OK, the wife ordered from the covidtests.gov site and I didn't realize that she wound up on the USPS site ... duh ...

 

[DT]

We need Yay for a tracking thread ...

 

[fooferdoggie]

man that was easy.can you imagine how bad if trump did it. well trump never would have done it.

 

[SuperMatt]

man that was easy.can you imagine how bad if trump did it. well trump never would have done it.

More testing just leads to more cases, dontcha know? Plus, we need to keep the tests here in our national stockpile with all the ventilators.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Get Four Free At-⁠Home COVID-⁠19 Tests This Fall

Every home in the U.S. is eligible to order an additional 4 free at-⁠home tests beginning November 20. If you did not order tests this fall, you may place two orders for a total of 8 tests.

www.covidtests.gov

Used that a few hours ago, got 4 coming

(Same, but different ...)

Oh I see that just links over to the USPS, OK, the wife ordered from the covidtests.gov site and I didn't realize that she wound up on the USPS site ... duh ...

Yeah, I found that interesting USPS is handling the order. I guess they’re already setup for such a thing.

I put in a order for my parents around 1:00 PM EST today. Hopefully they’ll be delivered in a reasonable amount of time. The official statement is 7-12 days, but the site also says they’re not shipping until the end of the January.

I bought a bunch for myself/family before Thanksgiving. I’m also PCR tested 2x per week at my hospital. So I figured I wouldn’t waste tests I don’t need.

I also have a decent stockpile for my business- both medically sourced and OTC (same tests, different packaging/branding). Medically sourced tests come in boxes of 20 or 40 depending on the brand but only have 1-2 bottles of reagent instead of vials for each test. Technically they also have be administered by a HCP even though they’re the same tests as the OTC ones. It’s annoying because the OTC kits tend to cost 1.5x-2x+.

We give the OTC tests to our clients if they’re going on pass (ie trip home) or to staff to use at home. Abbott and On/Go allow for patients to upload their results to us which is handy. (I believe iHealth has this too but we’re not setup for it yet).

This is part of the stockpile:

(This is for ~26 patients + staff). We go through tests pretty quickly fairly quickly right now though and much of this was ordered pre-omicron in preparation for what we thought would be a winter delta spike.

 

[AG_PhamD]

man that was easy.can you imagine how bad if trump did it. well trump never would have done it.

That’s entirely possible, but I would wouldn’t speak so soon of this being “easy”. 7-12 day delivery is a bit of an extended wait (honestly if they wanted the most outsource to the most competent logistics company, let Amazon handle this, not USPS).

I am concerned that as of last week the government had only physically procured 10m of the 500m tests. With 4 tests per household, that’s only tests for 2.5m households. There are 123m households in the US. I don’t know how quickly they expect to build their inventory, but I think there’s a decent possibility they fall way behind the demand. The test manufactures couldn’t keep up with demand because of omicron before the government announced this plan, I’m not sure how much better than they can do now.

Combining the information that these tests aren’t shipping until “the end of January” and it takes “7-12 days for delivery”, this wave might be essentially over by the time most people get their tests.

But for the sake of public health, I very much hope my concerns are proven wrong.

Honestly, the most annoying decision I think the government made was how the reimbursement works with rapid tests and insurance. Manually making claims is a PITA and I’m sure the insurance lobby requested this to ensure as few reimbursements as possible. It’s also very disappointing MEDICARE of all insurers isn’t allowing OTC reimbursement.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Just an FYI for those looking for tests:

Walmart has Abbott tests in stock available with ~2 day delivery. $20

Robot or human?

 

[DT]

That’s entirely possible, but I would wouldn’t speak so soon of this being “easy”. 7-12 day delivery is a bit of an extended wait (honestly if they wanted the most outsource to the most competent logistics company, let Amazon handle this, not USPS).

Ordered on Jan 24th, arrived today:

 

[Eric]

Ordered on Jan 24th, arrived today:


View attachment 11400

Got ours yesterday as well.

 

[Cmaier]

Got ours yesterday as well.

USPS says ours are coming today.

 

[Runs For Fun]

Hmmm. Still waiting for mine. I ordered the day before it was supposed to go live.

 

[Eric]

We got so many we might test ourselves over these sniffles we've had for the last 3 days (that are probably just allergies).

 

[Cmaier]

Mine came. Yay. Probably won’t get a chance to actually use them, but nice to have some extras on hand.

 

[Eric]

Mine came. Yay. Probably won’t get a chance to actually use them, but nice to have some extras on hand.

Me and a buddy hung out for the first time in a while a couple of weeks ago because we tested the day before, if nothing else it's peace of mind, even if not 100% guaranteed.