Earlier this week, President Joe Biden decided that actually, mailing free at-home rapid COVID tests to people might be a good idea after all.
LATEST: Pres. Biden to announce a plan to distribute 500 million free at-home rapid tests to Americans beginning in January. https://t.co/FFBpJ9DZpM pic.twitter.com/qgQway4Bnm
— ABC News (@ABC) December 21, 2021
Mind you, this was after his press secretary Jen Psaki had sneeringly dismissed the idea of mailing tests out.
.@JReinerMD: "Two weeks ago, Jen Psaki was asked at a press conference about getting more tests to the public & she very dismissively suggested in a sarcastic tone oh, do you think we should mail these tests out to everyone? Yes, that's exactly what I think you should do." pic.twitter.com/G6Kxond7XT
— Caroline Kenny (@carolinerkenny) December 18, 2021
Well anyway, now the Biden administration has got some serious catching up to do.
Biden vowed to distribute 500 million free virus tests.
In fact:
• The administration has not yet signed a contract to buy them
• Unclear whether manufacturers can ramp up
• Website to order them will not be up until January
By @shearm @SherylNYThttps://t.co/aoL1P7BMgM— Cliff Levy (@cliffordlevy) December 23, 2021
They’ve got quite a bit of explaining to do, too, in the wake of a new scoop from Vanity Fair’s Katherine Eban. Recall that Eban is also behind Vanity Fair’s bombshell article following an extensive investigation into the origins of COVID.
The Biden Administration Rejected an October Proposal for “Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays” https://t.co/yLkSUFToja via @VanityFair
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) December 24, 2021
More from Eban:
Breaking: Pleased to share my @VanityFair special report on @WhiteHouse deliberations over #COVID19 rapid testing. In an October 22 meeting, the administration got a detailed 10-pg plan to ramp up rapid testing to "prevent holiday COVID surge." https://t.co/1Ha0ZAhAQR /1
— Katherine Eban (@KatherineEban) December 23, 2021
Central to that plan, presented by @TheCOVIDCollab, @RockefellerFdn + others, was a "Bold Plan for Impact," namely: "Every American Household To Receive Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays/New Year." /2 pic.twitter.com/hdndFDEtqR
— Katherine Eban (@KatherineEban) December 23, 2021
The @WHCOVIDResponse rejected the idea as impossible to scale, given the limited manufacturing capacity at that time, and opted for "small ball" initiatives instead, @StevenCOVIDdoc, who was at the Oct. 22 meeting told me. /3
— Katherine Eban (@KatherineEban) December 23, 2021
Fast forward 2 months to an #OmicronVariant surge. W/ Americans stuck on endless testing lines, @POTUS announced same plan that his administration rejected in October: to get free, rapid tests into the hands of average Americans. But the effort won't start until January. /4
— Katherine Eban (@KatherineEban) December 23, 2021
.@POTUS told @DavidMuir yesterday, "I wish I had thought about ordering" 500 million at-home tests "two months ago." But that plan was clearly presented to his administration. https://t.co/dXIHn3Elrr /5
— Katherine Eban (@KatherineEban) December 23, 2021
October 22. Two months before Joe Biden’s interview with David Muir.
More:
The 10-page plan, which Vanity Fair has obtained, would enable the U.S. to finally do what many other countries had already done: Put rapid at-home COVID-19 testing into the hands of average citizens, allowing them to screen themselves in real time and thereby help reduce transmission. The plan called for an estimated 732 million tests per month, a number that would require a major ramp-up of manufacturing capacity. It also recommended, right on the first page, a nationwide “Testing Surge to Prevent Holiday COVID Surge.”
…
The plan, in effect, was a blueprint for how to avoid what is happening at this very moment—endless lines of desperate Americans clamoring for tests in order to safeguard holiday gatherings, just as COVID-19 is exploding again. Yesterday, President Biden told David Muir of ABC News, “I wish I had thought about ordering” 500 million at-home tests “two months ago.” But the proposal shared at the meeting in October, disclosed here for the first time, included a “Bold Plan for Impact” and a provision for “Every American Household to Receive Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays/New Year.”
Three days after the meeting, on October 25, the COVID-19 testing experts—who hailed from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Rockefeller Foundation, the COVID Collaborative, and several other organizations—received a back channel communication from a White House official. Their big, bold idea for free home tests for all Americans to avoid a holiday surge, they were told, was dead. That day, the administration instead announced an initiative to move rapid home tests more swiftly through the FDA’s regulatory approval process.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 24, 2021
— CaptainWombat (@techroach98) December 24, 2021
It was just an honest mistake! These things happen!
Seems like half the posts on our local community Facebook pages are now people asking where to find COVID tests. https://t.co/I4tmcsnVxJ
— Tess Thompson (@drtessthompson) December 24, 2021
Maybe the other half of the Facebook posts will be about how pissed off people are with the Biden administration for leaving them in the testing lurch.
This @KatherineEban story reminded me that whether it was candidate Biden saying he’d handle #Covid19 better than Trump, or China today, watch out for #hubris.
The Biden Administration Rejected an October Proposal for “Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays” https://t.co/bg7Cvopx8q
— 🚶🏻Curtis S. Chin (@CurtisSChin) December 24, 2021
Nicely done President Klain. pic.twitter.com/40HxqV2O3Q
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 24, 2021
It sure is nice to have all the adults back in charge, isn’t it?
It will be funny when Biden White House Covid advisors refuse to appear when subpoenaed by the GOP-controlled House in 2023. https://t.co/SisB1UwWAu
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) December 24, 2021
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