National covid brands are grappling with the government’s decision to shift an already declining amount of covid-19 investment to vaccines and remedies and move away from ing.
“Manufacturing capacity testing is already heading towards 65% of pre-peak production and we estimate that we may lose thousands more jobs in the US. “In the coming weeks,” an HHS spokesperson said in an email to STAT.
The decline in testing requests had already prompted some corporations to cut production, with some saying the additional cuts, as well as layoffs, were likely due to White House officials saying last week that investment in tests and private protective equipment would go on to buy vaccines. and the oral antiviral treatment Paxlovid.
And it doesn’t look like the White House will get more investment to fill its congressional reaction accounts to covid-19 anytime soon. He criticized Biden’s management for giving him “patently false” data about the urgency of the situation.
Labcorp, one of the largest check makers in the U. S. The U. S. Government said the government was very important for the company to maintain its ability to meet the demand for PCR controls.
“In reaction to the decrease in the call for COVID-19 PCR tests due, in part, to the availability of vaccines, boosters and other testing functions and the loss of government funding, Labcorp has reduced its workforce, basically casual and transient workers, committed to COVID-19 PCR testing,” said Christopher Allman-Bradshaw, Labcorp spokesman. in an email to STAT.
Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, under pressure, wants to be ready with a robust testing capacity that probably won’t need to be rebuilt if we have a new wave of cases this fall. .
“We also want to expand more equipment like new vaccines that can take over the variants that have emerged and are starting to emerge, and a testing infrastructure that doesn’t go back and forth, and that wants to be dismantled and rebuilt when we have spikes. and channels, we’ll have them in the future,” Inglesby said. In the past he served as the Biden administration’s Covid-19 testing coordinator.
A fitness care representative who requested anonymity because discussions on the matter are still ongoing said the layoffs were likely not funded.
“Everyone is suffering right now with what to do without the federal money, which has endured most of the testing,” the representative said. Anticipating an additional build-up in Covid cases, the user said that if “it becomes a more virulent and competitive variant, we’re going to have big problems. “
These events have a sense of déjà vu. In the spring of 2021, virus cases in the United States plummeted, leading to a drop in sales of covid tests. Abbott Laboratories canceled contracts with suppliers, halted production at its plants and laid off 2,000 workers. to rehire loads when there is a wave of instances with the Delta variant this fall and winter.
For now, the investment cuts have affected Abbott’s ability to obtain evidence, according to John Koval, a spokesman. But having a reliable source of testing will count on consistency in orders and production when the number of instances is still seasonally low, he said in an email to STAT.
“We invested on our own to build our new services at the beginning of the pandemic in the U. S. We source nearly all of our BinaxNOW verification parts from various domestic suppliers, protecting against supply chain disruptions and supporting between 200,000 and 300,000 oblique jobs in the U. S. “He said.
Companies and fitness officials said the trade-off between tests and vaccines is dangerous, especially for a virus that is spread earlier or without symptoms. Investing in testing is also financially advantageous, the representative argued. After all, an average Covid hospitalization Prices $20,000 – the charge for around 2,000 Covid tests, which can deter the spread of the virus.
The representative explained that after a production line is closed, the rehiring procedure is not only logistically tedious, but also confusing because of the need to locate workers with very express skills. Companies are also subject to the arduous procedure of ensuring the quality of their production. sites in accordance with Food and Drug Administration policies.
The HHS spokesman said that at the beginning of the pandemic, the United States had very little domestic production of tests. Once this production increase is complete, “it takes months to increase, which is too slow for fast-scaling variants. “
The loss of domestic production of covid-19 tests means that the U. S. will most likely be able to produce covid-19 tests. The U. S. depends on foreign countries, such as China, long-term covid outbreaks. The existing leading manufacturer of COVID-19 testing, iHealth, is an example of an expanding Asian manufacturer. its ability to test as U. S. corporations shrink.
At a briefing last week, White House coronavirus coordinator Ashish Jha stated that the stalemate and that there would be consequences.
“The challenge of domestic production testing is unfortunate because the U. S. government is struggling to do so. The U. S. department of energy has put a lot of resources and effort into building this national production and what we’re seeing is that day after day and week after week, it’s starting to make a lot of progress. Jha said. ” The companies, because the call for these tests has been reduced, are laying off staff and closing the production lines. “
And, he warned, rebuilding production after a relief would be increasingly difficult.
“If we don’t object and we place ourselves in a new wave without testing, we rely heavily on foreign manufacturers, mostly Chinese, to supply the tests that Americans want,” Jha said. “This is not the scenario we want to be in. “
Rachel Cohrs and Lev Facher contributed to the report.
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