Officials protest feds’ move to pull local testing support
Lawmakers warn of ‘catastrophic’ results should administration keep plan to stop funding at end of June
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is planning to pull federal support for some coronavirus testing sites across the nation at the end of the month, including seven in Texas, where confirmed cases of COVID are spiking.
An array of Texas officials from the city of Houston to the state legislature and Congress are urging the White House to rethink the move, warning of “catastrophic cascading consequences” of pulling federal support for testing sites, four of which are in Harris County and administer thousands of tests per day. Houston officials say the sites won’t close, but keeping them open without federal help will drain much-needed resources as the city works to expand testing and build a contact tracing network.
A Trump administration official said the sites are part of a “now antiquated program” the federal government is moving away from as it works to expand testing options and that the federal government has provided billions to help state testing efforts. But in Houston, two of the sites — the largest in the city, administering up to 500 tests each per day — are considered the backbone of testing efforts.
Texas has seen a 190-percent increase in lab-confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations since Memorial Day, and Houston could soon be the country’s worst-hit city, health officials have warned.
“Now is the time to be ramping up our testing capabilities, not slowing it down,” said U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat who led a letter to the heads of FEMA and Health and Human Services on Tuesday. Houston Democratic U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green and Lizzie Fletcher also signed it.
Also pushing back on the plan is a group of 20 members of the Texas House and Senate representing Harris County and Republican U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.
Assistant HHS Secretary Brett Giroir on Wednesday said he spoke personally with state leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Department of State Health Services Commissioner John Hellerstedt and Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd, about the sites, and they made it clear “they were very happy to take this under state control.”
Giroir said the federal government gives testing supplies to the state every month and that the federal government has sent Texas $567 million and Houston $73 million in coronavirus relief funding that they can use to help pick up the costs of keeping the sites running. Covering the seven sites in Texas that will lose federal support should be a “minimal burden” on the state, he said.
The Trump administration has long planned to end federal support for the sites and transition them to state and local control as it works to expand testing in other ways, including by partnering with pharmacies such as CVS. Giroir said that includes more than 200 sites in Texas.
But the administration has pushed back the plan to pull out of the sites at least once, in April, when it extended support for the sites until the end of June at the urging of local lawmakers.
Texas lawmakers are asking the administration to push back the deadline again, this time to the end of August. They say that ending federal support for the sites now could hinder local attempts to build up contact tracing networks and other efforts to control the outbreak.
“It’s pretty clear to me, and I think it’s clear to all of us, that with the uptick of cases, now is not a time to retreat from our vigilance in testing,” Cornyn said. “They need to extend that federal support in Texas, at least until we get this most recent uptick in cases addressed.”
Mayor Sylvester Turner said Wednesday that Houston will keep the testing sites open, but it will strain its resources to do so. The city’s health department is working on a transition plan as officials push for the federal government to reconsider.
“Losing the support of the federal government for testing sites will undoubtedly have catastrophic cascading consequences in the region’s ability to adequately test, quarantine and isolate, ultimately blunting the progression of COVID-19,” Turner and Dr. David Persse, the city’s health authority, wrote in a letter to Deputy Surgeon General Erica Schwartz earlier this week.
Houston has 27 testing sites, with most administering between 100 and 250 tests per day.
The federally supported sites at Butler and Delmar Stadiums are by far the city’s largest. The two Harris County sites — at the San Jacinto College campus in Pasadena and Pridgeon Stadium — administer around 750 tests each per day. All four federally support sites have been reaching capacity by 1 p.m., officials said.
The federal government also provides support for two sites in Dallas and one in El Paso.
“As we continue to see significant increases in the rate of infection in Houston and Harris County, we cannot afford for FEMA to withdraw fiscal, personnel and administrative support of COVID-19 testing sites,” Garcia said. “Doing so will only jeopardize our ability to monitor the spread of the virus and will set us back in our ability to take care of everyone in our community.”
The potential loss of federal support for the sites comes as President Donald Trump has said repeatedly this week that fewer tests would mean fewer reported cases of the disease, doubling down on comments he made at a weekend rally in Tulsa, Okla., when said he suggested that his administration “slow the testing down, please.”