cbaker_admin
Fri, 08/28/2020 – 10:30
The White House announced Thursday it will buy 150 million rapid COVID-19 tests from Abbott Laboratories for $760 million. The Abbott BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card Point of Care (POC) SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic test, which received emergency use authorization from FDA on August 26, will be used to expand strategic, evidence-based testing in the United States. The test does not require instrumentation, can be easily employed by medical personnel or trained operators in certain non-clinical environments operating through a CLIA certificate, and provides results in 15 minutes or less. Testing will be potentially deployed to schools and to assist with serving other special needs populations, according to an HHS news release. HHS Secretary Alex Azar noted, “By strategically distributing 150 million of these tests to where they’re needed most, we can track the virus like never before and protect millions of Americans at risk in especially vulnerable situations.”
