The Biden White House was slammed this week as Americans rushed to stores and clinics for Wuhan coronavirus tests ahead of Christmas, only to find empty shelves.
During an interview with ABC News, Biden admitted to the shortfall while falsely claiming nobody saw the latest variant of the virus coming.
EXCLUSIVE: Pres. Biden to @DavidMuir on lack of testing kits: "Nothing's been good enough."
— ABC News (@ABC) December 23, 2021
Read more: https://t.co/jaaJVXY2EW pic.twitter.com/ZPQLOLKoSh
But now, new reporting from Vanity Fair shows Biden was offered an extensive testing production plan back in October.
On October 22, a group of COVID-19 testing experts joined a Zoom call with officials from the Biden administration and presented a strategy for overhauling America’s approach to testing.
The 10-page plan, which Vanity Fair has obtained, would enable the U.S. to finally do what many other countries had already done: Put rapid at-home COVID-19 testing into the hands of average citizens, allowing them to screen themselves in real time and thereby help reduce transmission. The plan called for an estimated 732 million tests per month, a number that would require a major ramp-up of manufacturing capacity. It also recommended, right on the first page, a nationwide “Testing Surge to Prevent Holiday COVID Surge.”
The antigen tests at the center of the plan can detect the virus when patients are at their most contagious. Though less sensitive than polymerase chain reaction (PCR) laboratory tests, which can detect the virus’s genetic material at any stage of infection, antigen tests provide a quick snapshot in time for those seeking assurance that they are safe to travel or won’t accidentally infect vulnerable relatives.
The plan, in effect, was a blueprint for how to avoid what is happening at this very moment—endless lines of desperate Americans clamoring for tests in order to safeguard holiday gatherings, just as COVID-19 is exploding again.
Meanwhile, Biden's plan to ship 500 million tests to Americans is already falling apart and the infrastructure to get the job done hasn't been set up yet.
OMG this Doocy question ????
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 23, 2021
"There's going to be a website that people can go to starting next week. There are a lot of Obama alum that work here...Is anybody that was involved in the creation of https://t.co/l73499sVbS going to be involved in the creation of this new website?" pic.twitter.com/ybCm4Lf7pu
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny says Joe Biden is “not accepting any responsibility for this lack of testing.”
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 23, 2021
“There is no sense from this administration [tests] will be sent out early in January as the president suggested." pic.twitter.com/S9C0MpfjqN