It was this year; a question arose on the distribution of Covid tests to the states and why shouldn’t some states receive more tests than others. The question referenced Florida as one of those states. The question was put to Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary. I admire Jen for the job she does as there is no mincing of words or delays in her responses to the adversarial reporters in the mix. Her answer was (my memory), the tests are distributed by allocation to states. Which makes sense as a million of the tests do not appear overnight and manufacturing sites must be approved for manufacturing of medical supplies, GMP, FDA, USDA regulations all apply (drawing from my experience). There is a constant stream of Covid tests being delivered.
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run75441 considers the following as important: covid vaccine, COVID-19, Florida, Healthcare, Hot Topics, politics
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It was this year; a question arose on the distribution of Covid tests to the states and why shouldn’t some states receive more tests than others. The question referenced Florida as one of those states. The question was put to Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary.
I admire Jen for the job she does as there is no mincing of words or delays in her responses to the adversarial reporters in the mix. Her answer was (my memory), the tests are distributed by allocation to states. Which makes sense as a million of the tests do not appear overnight and manufacturing sites must be approved for manufacturing of medical supplies, GMP, FDA, USDA regulations all apply (drawing from my experience). There is a constant stream of Covid tests being delivered.
“Amid the delay in the roll-out of Biden’s plan, DeSantis —- who is widely speculated as a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate —- appears to be pushing for a race with the federal government to get tests shipped out first.” Competition with Joe Biden pushes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to do his job | Blogs (orlandoweekly.com)
If only Florida had enough tests, Florida could be testing more people. DeSantis could be testing more of those people who are more vulnerable.
“The governor’s comments came a day after state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced the Florida Department of Health intends to publish new testing guidelines aimed at emphasizing “high-value testing,” which he said would target seniors and medically vulnerable individuals.” Competition with Joe Biden pushes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to do his job | Blogs (orlandoweekly.com)
As an explanation of why this direction:
Ladapo: “The guidance that we’re going to be putting out will be talking about … testing based on risk factors, based on risk level. Because that’s the primary item that determines whether or not a test is actually likely to make a difference.” Competition with Joe Biden pushes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to do his job | Blogs (orlandoweekly.com)
As others have noted, fewer tests can equate to fewer cases of Covid. I am sure DeSantis will also be commenting on a lack of Covid tests to accomplish his plans. Set aside, this should have been accomplished well before Biden took office. Republicans have been telling people they do not need testing and should not be told to be vaccinated. What do we have , 60 or so percent of the people vaccinated?
“298,455 new coronavirus cases were recorded in the week that ended Dec. 30 in Florida. More than double the number of cases reported a week earlier.”
“DeSantis: A lot of those tests (testing everyone who believes they may have caught Covid) are not a good use of testing. Testing really needs to be focused on the people that have clinical symptoms. So you have people that are symptomatic, and they may not have as good of access because you have so many other tests being used in ways which really aren’t a good use of resources,” Competition with Joe Biden pushes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to do his job | Blogs (orlandoweekly.com)
Is throwing Covid tests away because they expired a good use of them?
On Dec. 30, Fried, a Democrat who is running against DeSantis for Florida governor, released a statement saying it had come to her attention that the Florida Department of Health had a “significant number” of COVID-19 tests about to expire.
and . . .
During a press conference with DeSantis Thursday in West Palm Beach, Kevin Guthrie, the director of the state Division of Emergency Management, confirmed that Florida had between 800,000 and 1 million COVID-19 tests that expired between Dec. 26-30.
According to Guthrie, they had originally expired in September, but the state received a three-month extension on those test kits from the manufacturer and federal regulators.
What was suggested? Florida could have offered their tests to other states if they were not needed in Florida. They didn’t. One question to Jen Psaki was “how are tests being allocated?” Florida already misused a large quantity of tests. Republicans blaming Dems for their mistakes . . .