Trump Is Sending Fast, Cheap COVID Tests to Nursing Homes — But There’s a Hitch

 

By Rachana Pradhan

The Trump administration’s latest effort to use COVID-19 rapid tests — touted by one senior official as a “turning point” in arresting the coronavirus’s spread within nursing homes — is running into roadblocks likely to limit how widely they’ll be used.

Federal officials are distributing point-of-care antigen tests — which are cheaper and faster than tests that must be run by a lab — to 14,000 nursing homes to increase routine screening of residents and staff. The initial distribution targets nursing homes in hot spots and those with at least three COVID-19 cases, senior Trump administration officials said in July, hailing it as a tool that could root out asymptomatic carriers who might still infect others.

But there’s a hitch: Two manufacturers that have received Food and Drug Administration authorization and whose instruments are being delivered — Becton, Dickinson and Co., known as BD, and Quidel — say their antigen tests are intended for patients with symptoms, calling into question how valuable the tests would be for broad screening purposes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 40% of infected people may be asymptomatic.

Experts say the administration’s approach with antigen tests could add cost and risk for the most vulnerable patients. Read more here.