Good news out of the Trump campaign ahead of the election. Donald Trump has declared that plans are underway to distribute 150 million rapid COVID 19 tests in the next few weeks. The new rapid tests take only 15 minutes to get results. He has declared this move to be positive of his agenda to reopen the economy as soon as possible. He has also made a push to reopen schools all around the US, and he believes that rapid testing is going to help with that too.
The rapid tests come out of Abbott, and they are a point of care tests that will be launched very soon, according to him. Until this point in the pandemic, the US has conducted only half as many tests. So, the addition of a 150 million test kit will dramatically improve the mortality rate of the United States. In discussion with the reporters in the White House Rose Garden, he has cleared his plan to open the economy and make COVID-19 tests available to the general public.
Who stands to benefit from it?
The White House has announced that 50 million of the tests that have been ordered will go to the most vulnerable and poor communities. This includes around 18 million nursing homes across the country and an almost equal number of assisted living facilities.
A huge chunk of it will also go to health care, home care, and Hospice agencies. He is also planning to donate some of these tests to colleges that have been a historically black and tribal nation. The States and territories can use 100 million of the tests to ensure the health of the general public so they can reopen the schools and communities as soon as possible.
This massive push from the Trump administration will ensure that at least one in two people will be able to get tested on a very regular basis. Trump has emphasized that teachers should be able to access these tests because they are among the high-risk communities and fall under the administration’s effort to protect them.
Considering more than two million Americans have already died due to the pandemic and almost four times that have been tested positive, there are huge upsides to the tests. By his estimate, the US has conducted around 100 million tests for COVID-19, which is more than any other country globally, followed by India. Even India has done much less testing even though they have a much higher population than the US. He has also noted that the US might have had conducted even more tests than the European and Latin American nations combined.
How do the tests work?
Abbott officials have declared that these tests will return the results of a swap within just minutes. The White House also showed a live demo of how the test is going to work out. The resulting time is a maximum of 15 minutes, and the user does not need any machines to get the results.
The US is conducting around 3 million tests every day. This is without counting the full testing efforts, which could make it several times more. Almost half of the tests being conducted in the United States are a rapid point of care tests. This takes the average test number for the United States to close to a million every day since the start of the pandemic.
The White House has also pressed that even though the testing is going to be stressed upon, they are at an inflection point. In the coming months, there is no reason to stop these testing efforts. This is bolstered by the fact that the Trump administration has contacted Abbott Pharmaceuticals for almost 760 million dollars to deliver these 150 million rapid box tests.
The tests can quickly detect the presence of COVID-19 antigen by using a nasal swab. The swap is also included in the test, so this is a complete package that users can utilize in their home. Trump has reportedly finally started to take the pandemic threat seriously, and he is holding no bars to make sure the tests are widely available to all Americans.
