Federal government has allocated at least $73 billion for COVID-19 testing, so where are the tests?

The average number of COVID-19 tests per day is nearing record highs as Americans wait in hours-long lines around the country to get tested after the holidays.

The American Rescue Plan, ushered through Congress by the Biden administration last March, allocated $47.8 billion “to carry out activities to detect, diagnose, trace, and monitor SARS–CoV–2 and COVID–19 infections.”

About 80% of those funds were gone by mid-December, according to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra.

“Are we going to have more than $10 billion worth of needs and costs? (With) COVID, especially regarding testing, there’s a strong chance we will, depending on, again, where Omicron takes us,” Becerra told reporters on Dec. 14, according to Reuters.

Since Dec. 14, the 7-day average for new daily cases has gone up nearly three-fold, surging from 119,356 to 316,277 new infections last Wednesday.

America was closing in on a record number of new tests per day in December as the 7-day average for new tests hit 1,769,532 on Dec. 23.

Prior to the American Rescue Plan, Congress allocated $25 billion in April 2020 as part of the Paycheck Protection Program to “research, develop, validate, manufacture, purchase, administer, and expand capacity for COVID–19 tests.” – READ MORE