Rapid COVID tests plentiful butwon’t be widely available
A wealth of new COVID-19 tests soon could help states more broadly track people in schools, dense workplaces and vulnerable populations.
In October, the supply of rapid-result COVID-19 tests, also knownas antigen tests, shot up to more than 150 million— six times the number of tests of any kind performed in August and 10 million more than the total number performed in the United States since the pandemic began, according to the COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run group begun by the Atlantic.
And unlike laboratorybased polymerase chain reaction tests, known as PCR tests, whose numbers can be expanded only in small increments, antigen tests can be produced quickly and cheaply to meet demand.
In theory, the growing supply of rapid-result antigen tests should allow millions of asymptomatic people — who make up at least 40 percent of those infected with the coronavirus — to be regularly screened for the virus, and for thosewho test positive to be isolated to curtail the spread in classrooms, workplaces and other environments.
But so far, that’s not the plan.
Instead, most states say they expect to use the 15minute tests to diagnose symptomatic people in prisons, police and fire departments, health clinics and other places that already are set up to conduct testing. Somestates also are making the kits available to school nurses to test anyone who complains of symptoms.
A few states plan to use the new tests to control viral spread in specific highrisk populations.
Alaska, for example, is sending tests to oil-drilling sites, while Mississippi and other states are shipping them to veterans homes, according to the U.S. Department ofHealth and Human Services. Nevada is sending them to tribal health clinics, and Colorado plans to use them to test homeless populations.
“Without a plan, without a strategy, more testing isn’t going to get us out of this pandemic,” said Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and senior scholar at the John Hopkins Center for Health Security.