Drive-thru testing for virus slow to ramp up
More than a month ago, President Donald Trump stood in the Rose Garden alongside the CEOs of Target, Walmart, CVS and Walgreens and announced a new public-private partnership to make drive-thru tests available in store parking lots across the country.
Five weeks later, that effort has been slow to ramp up, as governors and business leaders clamor to find a way to provide more widespread testing so parts of the economy can be reopened.
Main stumbling blocks have been the same challenges that health care practitioners face nationwide: access to testing supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE).
Also, the partnership is a loosely coordinated one with much of the work being left up to retailers and states to hash out.
“It’s part of a consistent pattern of (the Trump administration) rolling out announcements with great fanfare that don’t in reality measure up,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development.
Retailers say they are committed to the effort, but say it has taken time to coordinate and to pilot the sites to figure out how to best set them up. After seeing what did and didn’t work, they have adjusted their operations and are now beginning to expand them.
Walmart has opened nine drive-thru testing sites, with plans for 20 by the end of the month. Walgreens has opened nine of 15 sites planned so far. CVS has opened five. Target has just one, with one more slated to open in the coming week.
At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it continues to work with pharmacies and retail companies to accelerate testing.
“We are using data to locate sites in counties that are undertested and socially vulnerable,” the department said in a statement.
It added that the retail partners are responsible for providing the end-to-end testing process including online registration, staffing, supplies and lab testing.
The companies also must provide the tests at no cost to Americans, the federal agency said.
Last week, Trump said states are better suited to handle the logistics of such testing sites than the federal government.
“We’re not going to be running a parking lot in Arkansas,” he said, referencing the home state of Walmart. “The states are much better equipped to do it.”
A White House spokesman did not respond to a request to comment.
Target’s only drive-thru testing site is set up outside its store in Chula Vista, Calif. The University of California San Diego is overseeing the operations of that location. Target also is working with local officials, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard to open another site in Baltimore in the coming week.
Target said it remains committed to providing its parking lots for testing sites where needed and is working with local and federal officials to identify locations.
But one of its challenges is that it doesn’t have its own in-house health expertise since it sold its in-store pharmacies to CVS several years ago. Target CEO Brian Cornell told reporters late last month that the company will have to rely on CVS to provide the technical knowledge and the staffing for the testing effort.
“We’re certainly supportive of using our space, but we’d be partnering with our friends at CVS to help bring this to life,” he said.