BREAKING (not so surprising) NEWS:

The Trump Admin is touting rapid antigen paper tests. The @AbbottNews BinaxNOW assay is terrific and is a great start.

But don’t be fooled - the number of tests being distributed by the WH is simply not sufficient...

1/ https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1310665366532624384

They are saying there are sufficient tests to be used daily or weekly by many many Americans in the coming weeks, but the actual number of tests they are distributing is no where near what is needed....

2/

Distribution of 30 million rapid tests per month may sound like a lot, but across the US, it is 1 test per person per year!

This is not near the type of rapid test volume that is needed to make a major impact...

3/

Instead the federal government CAN take responsibility and take ownership of testing, instead of simply purchasing what’s available.

The WH need to take a leadership role and actually oversee these tests at a volume that can in fact live up to Trump’s (false) hype...

4/

Pence just said we are doing 3M tests per day. This is false. Not even close.

He is saying the new deployment of these tests will open up America’s schools. Clearly he hasn’t done the basic math. How far can 1M rapid tests per day go to actually keep schools safe?...

5/

Don’t get me wrong, these rapid tests can and will likely be crucial to control this virus. But the math here just doesn’t add up. They need to appropriate not $750M but $20B to produce them with defense production act or other in much greater quantities... 10-20x

If $20B sounds like a lot... it isn’t. Its a small fraction of the losses and COVID stimulus bills that have and will continue to be put in place. A very small fraction.

There’s no reason the WH and congress are not being more proactive with testing and scale up of these tests

One clarification... while frustrated with lack of initiative by WH (understatement), this is progress.

It’s slow, but better than him getting to podium and saying nothing new with testing is happening.

So, a positive announcement, but couched in hyperbole and half truths.