It's Friday, December ten. I'm Oscar Emiras from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America. Since the start of the pandemic, the testing infrastructure in the US has been marred by stumbles. Now as President Biden is putting more emphasis on rapid tests to help fight COVID, these tests are often out of stock and still too expensive for many. Even as the new rules say insurers would pay for these tests, it could be
difficult to get the reimbursements. Lena's son, health reporter at the Washington Post, joins us for more on rapid COVID test. Thanks for joining us, Lena, Thank you for having me. I wanted to talk about these rapid coronavirus tests. There's still hard to find in many places. The cost of them could be an issue for a lot of people. But we saw recently President Biden announced that he wanted to make this a bigger part of his plan to
fight coronavirus. Obviously, with the rise of the omicron variant, we want to test as many people as we can, and it's it's been one of those things that kind of fell by the wayside when there was so much emphasis put on vaccines, the testing infrastructure lagged a little bit, and we're just really far behind in that sense of thing. So, Lena, what are we seeing with these rapid tests? Well, I think what happened is that when the rapid tests first
came out, they were fairly novel idea. And you know, in the spring, the huge emphasis by the administration was on vaccination. And vaccination, of course, is still the best way to fight the coronavirus. Right. You know, if you're vaccinated, you're much less likely to get infected, get sick, and die. Right, it's much better. Prevention testing has been like the original sin in this pandemic for the United States since the very beginning, starting last year, they didn't get the test right.
They didn't realize people could spread this without symptoms. And then I think when with the push for the vaccination, there was less of an emphasis on the test and there was a fall off in demand, and so there was not as much manufacturing going on, and by the time delta hit and we need did to have more tests, the manufacturing industry had to ramp back up, and that took time, and in the meantime, you know, people really
want these there they realized they're easier to use. In New Hampshire, right after Thanksgiving, residents were able to apply to get free tests delivered to their door and eight hundred thousands of one million tests were gone in less than twenty four hours. Of course, they were free and they were delivered right to your door. And I think what you see here is a difference in policy between
the United States and some other countries. Jeff Signs, the White House coronavirus sort of coordinator, has been asked again and again why doesn't the United States do what other countries do. In the UK? You know, these rapid tests are free and available, and White House has said that this is something they want to do more efficient and to give people an opportunity to get them. Um, but you know, also cost a lot more money right to buy tests people to send them to everybody in the country.
That's on the consumer level. Then on the state level, different states have said that they've ordered these over the counter tests, and it's important for states to be able to use them because let's say your school system and you want to make sure that kids don't have to stay home for quarantine if you can do test to stay which is to test them serially, make sure nobody is positive. Then kids can stay in class and it
doesn't have such an impact. But of course you need a lot of tests, Yeah, definitely, and that you know, basically, if some of a kid had gotten exposed to somebody, they would send them home immediately. Now with these tests to stay programs, they're tested and as long as they're negative, they can stay in class. So there's less disruptions there. And you know, to your point about kind of you know,
some of the guidance and some of the missteps. You know, when the vaccines came out, they said, hey, if you're fully vaccinated, you don't need to even test as often. And the ripple effects of that, you know, Abbott laid off a bunch of workers because they saw demand dropping for these tests. So there's a lot that was at play. And as I mentioned, you know, President Biden made the announcement he wants to increase the testing. He wants private
insurans to reimburse people when they buy these tests. But a lot of experts say that could even be a nonstarter because it requires a person who pay it out of pocket. First. Then you've got to submit receipts, and it's kind of a big hassle to deal with the insurance companies on that front. Right, they call that pay and chase. Right, everything we know about health public health tells us that the fewer barriers you put up for somebody, the greater the chance that the thing that you're trying
to do will get accomplished. So if I had free tests on every corner, then yeah, maybe people would get tested more. But if I have to go to CVS, buy the tests, and then keep the receipt, then figure out how to submit to insurance, set aside the time to submit to insurance, call the insurance company. If I don't get the stuff right or I don't get my reimbursement, that's just like four more things I have to do. And I think that that that's going to make it harder.
I mean, I think that's something they're trying. This trial program that they started in April called Yes to the COVID Test was distributed in a couple of places around the country, and they made more than about five point five million free rapid tests available, and in some places they were snapped up very quickly, in other places not as quickly, but I think that probably had to do with the novelty of a rapid test. And then the
other point that I wanted to share. Maybe people have noticed this is up until very recently, when you bought one of these test kits, you read the instructions, it tells you, Okay, put six drops in here and then open this up and then look for the pink line or whatever. It tells you exactly how to use it, but it doesn't really give you a lot of guidance as when is the best time to use it and what do you do if you get a positive result.
And CDC recently updated guidance to give people more guidance to explain the circumstances under which these would be useful. Yeah, I mean you kind of leave people down their own devices with that, and you have a test and you know, to interpret it oftentimes is difficult. The pandemic fight has always been a multi pronged effort and testing, as you mentioned in the article, right for the two years, as long as we've been fighting, it has always been you know,
not given the attention that it needed. It was supposed to be the thing to get us out of the pandemic in the first place. Then it came to vaccines and all of this fell to the wayside. So I know there's a lot more money being put into this. I know there's a lot more attention on it now. So we'll see if it plays out and if the US can get their testing standards up with all of this. Lena's son, health reporter at the National Desk at the Washington Post. Thank you very much for joining us, Thank
you for having me. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every money through Friday, So follow us and I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast.