(Headline USA) President Donald Trump announced Monday that the federal government will begin distributing millions of rapid coronavirus tests to states this week and urged governors to use them to reopen schools for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
The tests will go out to states based on their population and can be used as governors see fit, but the Trump administration is encouraging states to place a priority on schools.
Statistics have routinely shown that children face a minuscule chance of succumbing to the virus and, barring any prior risk factors, the mortality rate is close to nothing.
The vast majority of deaths have been those over age 65, particularly those in nursing homes, who account for an estimated 40 percent of COVID deaths.
But leftists hoping to extend the lockdowns and virus panic through the election season have insisted that the risk factors for children to transmit the virus—even under the highly regulated social-distancing parameters in place and with widespread testing—are too great for them to relax while Trump remains in office.
White House officials said at a Rose Garden event that 6.5 million tests will go out this week and that a total of 100 million tests will be distributed to governors over the next several weeks.
Officials said the administration is emphasizing testing in schools because it’s important to the physical, social and emotional development of students to be back in classrooms to the degree that’s possible.
The Abbott Laboratories tests would allow parents to know whether their symptomatic child has COVID-19. In some cases, states could undertake some baseline surveillance, like testing a proportion of students per week or per month to make sure that the incidence of COVID-19 is low.
“You have too many states that are locked down right now,” Trump said. “The governors are … nobody knows what the governors are doing actually.”
The tests will come from a previously announced supply of 150 million ordered from Abbott. The company’s rapid test, the size of a credit card, is the first that does not require specialty computer equipment to process. It delivers results in about 15 minutes.
Rapid, convenient testing is considered essential to reopening the U.S. economy.
For months, Trump has prodded state and local leaders to open schools this fall. But private labs and hospitals struggled to ramp up testing capacity due to shortages of key supplies, including testing chemicals.
Only in the last two months has U.S. testing capacity generally exceeded demand. The government’s top testing official, Adm. Brett Giroir, told Congress last week that the nation will soon have the capacity to run 3 million tests per day, on average.
The U.S. has been averaging about 900,000 tests per day, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
Giroir demonstrated the ease with which the test is given, self-administering the nasal swab then placing it on a piece of paper that contained six drops of liquid.
“This is a very sophisticated little piece of cardboard with lots of antibodies and incredible technology,” he said.
Abbott’s test is an important advance because of its low cost and easy-to-use format. Until now, the vast majority of coronavirus tests had to be sent to high-grade medical laboratories for processing that typically took several days.
Backlogs led to repeated delays in reporting results, especially during a summer spike in cases.
But rapid, point-of-care tests like Abbott’s have their own downsides. They are less accurate, and positive results often need to be confirmed with higher-grade lab tests.
Additionally, because the tests are often performed outside the health care system, state officials have warned that many tests are going unreported. That could lead to undercounts of new cases, skewing government data needed to track the virus.
“What we’re hearing from the states is that they don’t know where these tests are being done,” said Dr. Jeffrey Engel of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, in a recent interview.
He warned that schools generally do not have the capacity or expertise to report mass testing results, which could artificially lower infection counts sent to state and federal officials.
Trump warned that with an increase in testing, there would “automatically” be an increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.
“It’s important to remember that as younger and healthier people return to work and as we massively increase testing capacity, we will identify more cases in asymptomatic individuals in low-risk populations,” Trump said. “This should not cause undue alarm.”
The Trump administration announced earlier this month that the Abbott tests would also go to assisted-living facilities, moving to fill a testing gap for older adults who do not need the constant attention of a nursing home. Senior day care centers and home health agencies are getting the tests too.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
