Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly two years ago, lawmakers have backed more than $80 billion for virus testing. Democrats unilaterally passed $47 billion of that funding in March to protect the development, manufacture, purchase, and allocation of new rapid COVID-19 tests.
But nine months later, COVID-19 tests have become nearly impossible to find during the latest surge caused by the Omicron variant, and Republicans are urging Biden to give answers about why the Administration was not prepared.
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“For the last month, Americans have faced long lines at testing centers. They've gone to places where they thought they could purchase a rapid test to find empty shelves,” Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican who helped craft some of the legislation providing testing funds, said. “The question I really have is the same that many Americans have, which is, what went wrong? Why are we facing such a shortage of tests now?”
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Blunt, along with Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican who also helped write the legislation providing COVID-19 testing money, wrote to the Administration requesting information on the $82.6 billion allocated to produce and distribute the tests.
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“It is unclear to us why we are facing such dire circumstances now,” The senators wrote. “It does not appear to be because of lack of funding, but a more fundamental lack of strategy and a failure to anticipate future testing needs by the administration.”
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Across the Capitol, House Republicans slammed the Biden Administration for redirecting $850 million (nearly 10% of the testing funding allocated in March) to the crisis on the southern border. The funds were used for, among other things, housing for the massive influx of illegal immigrants.
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“Your Administration has misused taxpayer dollars to spend on items unrelated to COVID-19 and repurposed funds for the southern border crisis of your own creation,” House Ways and Means Committee Republicans wrote to Biden this week.
Republicans also accuse the Biden Administration of focusing the COVID-19 response on vaccinations and vaccine mandates instead of testing and treatment.
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Doses of effective treatments, such as monoclonal antibodies, are limited. The federal government recently began controlling distribution to the states.
The Biden Administration announced last week it would begin addressing the testing shortage by distributing nearly 500 million at-home COVID-19 rapid tests “to the American people for free.” Tests can be ordered beginning January 19 but won’t ship for 7 to 12 days.
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