ducks
12-24-2021, 07:50 PM
President Joe Biden's White House refused an October plan by COVID-19 testing experts to put some 732 million at-home tests in the hands of the public, a Vanity Fair report said Friday.
According to the report, which included a Zoom meeting and 10-page plan from October, authored by the COVID Collaborative, a group of several COVID testing expert organizations, said the country needed a "bold" plan to send out some 732 million tests per month for the disease before the holiday season to reduce family gathering outbreaks.
"The plan, in effect, was a blueprint for how to avoid what is happening at this very moment — endless lines of desperate Americans clamoring for tests in order to safeguard holiday gatherings, just as COVID-19 is exploding again," Vanity Fair reported.
The Biden administration, however, told the experts who authored the report that the idea was "dead" just days after the virtual meeting and report's release.
"The White House, in baseball terms, was playing small ball," meeting attendee Dr. Steven Phillips, a vice president of science and strategy for the COVID Collaborative, a team of high-level experts working to develop consensus recommendations for policy makers, told Vanity Fair. "When it comes to rapid testing, they're bunting the players along."
The report comes after long lines of people throughout the country went to get tested prior to holiday travel, with some waiting hours to find out if they were infected as the new omicron variant sweeps through the nation, increasing the number of new COVID-19 cases above previous pandemic levels in many places.
According to the report, which included a Zoom meeting and 10-page plan from October, authored by the COVID Collaborative, a group of several COVID testing expert organizations, said the country needed a "bold" plan to send out some 732 million tests per month for the disease before the holiday season to reduce family gathering outbreaks.
"The plan, in effect, was a blueprint for how to avoid what is happening at this very moment — endless lines of desperate Americans clamoring for tests in order to safeguard holiday gatherings, just as COVID-19 is exploding again," Vanity Fair reported.
The Biden administration, however, told the experts who authored the report that the idea was "dead" just days after the virtual meeting and report's release.
"The White House, in baseball terms, was playing small ball," meeting attendee Dr. Steven Phillips, a vice president of science and strategy for the COVID Collaborative, a team of high-level experts working to develop consensus recommendations for policy makers, told Vanity Fair. "When it comes to rapid testing, they're bunting the players along."
The report comes after long lines of people throughout the country went to get tested prior to holiday travel, with some waiting hours to find out if they were infected as the new omicron variant sweeps through the nation, increasing the number of new COVID-19 cases above previous pandemic levels in many places.