Sen. Smith Leads 45 Colleagues in Push for More Information, Transparency on Coronavirus Testing Across Country
"Over three weeks after
"Widespread diagnostic testing is crucial to controlling the COVID-19 outbreak. In the short term, quickly obtaining test results for hospitalized patients allows hospitals to preserve supplies of PPE and prevents unnecessary quarantines of front-line health care workers and first responders. In the long run, experts have argued that widespread testing will be needed to track and contain COVID-19 cases, allowing communities to slowly lift general social distancing restrictions without putting the public at risk."
The senators continued, "We urge you to promptly develop a national, real-time, public-facing inventory of COVID-19 diagnostic tests and results. This resource will provide the transparency that our states and Tribal Nations need to anticipate the national testing supply chain and the information that the federal government needs to anticipate and proactively address any testing shortages."
To: Vice President
We write to urge the
Over three weeks after
Widespread diagnostic testing is crucial to controlling the COVID-19 outbreak./2
In the short term, quickly obtaining test results for hospitalized patients allows hospitals to preserve supplies of PPE/3 and prevents unnecessary quarantines of front-line health care workers and first responders./4
In the long run, experts have argued that widespread testing will be needed to track and contain COVID-19 cases, allowing communities to slowly lift general social distancing restrictions without putting the public at risk./5
The lack of tests is reportedly forcing the administration, in concert with private actors, to funnel available supplies to certain areas. For example,
This may explain why, even though the
While it is important to provide tests for COVID-19 hot spots, tests cannot be limited to those areas. Without prompt and sufficient access to coronavirus tests, we risk exacerbating outbreaks and becoming a nation of hot spots.
Furthermore, the decentralized system of tracking tests and the corresponding lack of transparency into when and where these tests are being sent makes it challenging for our nation as a whole to systemically plan its public health response to the COVID-19 outbreak./8
Currently, hospitals are finding that some labs are working through significant backlogs, leaving samples untested for days or weeks, while others are able to turn results around quickly, within 24 to 48 hours./9 Without detailed information about the capacity and turnaround time for each lab, it is impossible to efficiently distribute testing capacity on the nationwide scale that is required by this crisis. Given the Administration's track record of over-promising and under-delivering on testing for COVID-19,/10 the public deserves full transparency about our national capacity for COVID-19 testing, including where tests are available, how many have been conducted, which patients have access to testing, and what the results of these tests revealed.
These persistent gaps in the availability of COVID-19 diagnostic tests and the lack of public transparency about where tests are available raise the need for a national inventory of COVID-19 diagnostic tests. The recently passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act granted HHS the authority to collect test results from any laboratory./11
Additionally, you recently wrote to hospitals asking them to report their internal test results to the
We urge you to extend data collection efforts to commercial and academic labs, coordinate data collection between each agency, the Indian Tribes, and the states, and make the resulting information available to the public as rapidly as possible.
Specifically, this public-facing inventory should provide real-time data that answer the following questions:
1. How many COVID-19 diagnostic tests are available on a daily basis, and to which states and Tribes are manufacturers sending these tests? How many of these tests screen for coronavirus antibodies?
2. To which public health, academic, and commercial laboratories are COVID-19 diagnostic test manufacturers sending tests, and how many tests are being sent to these labs?
3. Which laboratories--public health, academic, and commercial--can run COVID-19 diagnostic tests, and what is their daily capacity to run these tests? Please provide a breakdown of this information by lab type, test type, and state if possible.
4. What is the wait time for laboratories to process and receive results for COVID-19 tests? Do providers have to wait minutes, hours, or days to receive their patients' results?
5. What supplies do America's public health, academic, and commercial laboratories need on hand to run at full capacity to process COVID-19 tests? Which of these supplies are in shortage, and what steps is the Administration taking to expand the capacity of these supplies?
Additionally, we request answers to the following questions:
6. In a
7. Will the
8. Which federal agency is managing the supply chain and distribution of tests and testing supplies to states, territories, and Indian Tribes? Which official is leading the testing supply and distribution effort within that agency?
We urge you to promptly develop a national, real-time, public-facing inventory of COVID-19 diagnostic tests and results. This resource will provide the transparency that our states and Tribal Nations need to anticipate the national testing supply chain and the information that the federal government needs to anticipate and proactively address any testing shortages.
Footnotes:
1/
2/ Senator
3/
4/
5
6/
7/
8/
9/ The
10/ Id.
11/CARES Act Section 18115, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.xml
12/
Sen. Harris, Colleagues Push for More Information, Transparency on Coronavirus Testing Across Country
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