Biden Administration Signs $137M Deal for Covid Test Strip Factory...But There's a Catch

Leah Barkoukis | December 30, 2021 8:00 AM

Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases across the country, fueled in large part by the spread of the new Omicron variant, at-home testing kits are nearly impossible to find in some areas. That makes the Biden administration’s new deal with a pharmaceutical company to increase production welcome news…except for one major catch.

The $137 million contract with Millipore Sigma, a unit of Germany's Merck KGaA, to build a factory for making Covid-19 test strip materials won’t be ready for at least three years, the company said, according to Fox News, doing nothing to alleviate the current demand. The move also signals the virus will not be “shut down” by any politician, as Biden vowed on the campaign trail, but will be endemic.

Today, I committed $137 million to expanding the production of COVID-19 at-home tests using our military authority in order to meet demand. https://t.co/eNmA4CCkkR
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 30, 2021

The money will allow the company over three years to build a new facility to produce nitrocellulose membranes, the paper that displays test results, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. That, in turn, will allow for 85 million more tests to be produced per month, the official said. […]
The contract, which will be announced by the Department of Defense for the Department of Health and Human Services, is part of a bid by the Biden administration to ramp up production of scarce rapid COVID-19 tests, which has taken on more urgency as nations grapple with the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus. […]
But U.S. testing is behind the curve because of a lack of skilled workers, a shortage of at-home tests and under-investment in recent months, and health experts in the U.S. said Biden's latest plan was "too little, too late." (Reuters)