According to a report from a bipartisan committee of experts assembled by the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. should invest a whopping $75B to “fix” its “flawed” system of COVID-19 diagnostic testing.
Recommendations:
Rapid expansion of testing capacity from today’s 4.5M tests per week to 30M tests per week by October.
Massive scale-up of screening tests to identify asymptomatic carriers.
Reduce test processing time from today’s 5-14 days to 48 hours (appears to be a logistics issue).
The Foundation says it will invest an additional $50M toward realizing the emergency requirements outlined in the report. It provides no further details to support the $75B figure.
The $25B the U.S. government committed for COVID-19 testing several months ago was not addressed. Those funds should be more than adequate for scale up.
U.S. COVID-19 testing capacity still constrained – AACC
Coronavirus testing available in every state – CDC
