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White House outlines "bridge" funding to increase Covid-19 testing
From CNN's Betsy Klein
White House Covid-19 response team testing coordinator Carole Johnson announced new steps from the Biden administration to increase testing efforts and capacity across the country, focused on testing for schools and underserved communities, testing supplies, and genomic sequencing as a “bridge” before Congress is able to pass a stimulus package.
“We need to test broadly and rapidly to turn the tide of this pandemic. But we still don’t have enough testing and we don’t have enough testing in all the places it needs to be. Today, we’re taking a critical step along that path,” she said at Wednesday’s virtual Covid briefing.
She outlined a new $1.6 billion federal investment in three key areas:
• $650 million in funding for testing for schools and underserved populations: She said this will “serve only as a pilot” until Congress can pass a relief package. It will create regional coordinating centers that will partner with labs to support schools and underserved committees, including homeless shelters and other places that “don’t have the resources or the bandwidth to build partnerships with academic or commercial testing labs.”
• $815 million for domestic manufacturing of testing supplies: This money will address what Johnson described as a “shortage of critical supplies and raw materials,” including pipette tips, the specialized paper used in the antigen test, and the specialized molded plastics needed to house testing reagents.
• Nearly $200 million toward genome sequencing: The funding will “result in a three-fold increase to the CDC’s genomic sequencing capacity,” bringing the US to 25,000 samples per week, which, she said, will help to quickly identify variants sooner and “better target our efforts to stop the spread.”
Johnson said that these steps are “a significant help in the short term” but are still “far from what’s necessary to meet the needs of testing in communities across the country,” describing the funding as a “bridge until Congress passes the American Rescue Plan.”
“We need to build the capacity to produce these materials, or we'll continue to face shortages that will sidetrack our work in expanding access to testing,” she added.

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