The White House defended the Biden administration’s response to a nationwide shortage of coronavirus tests, blaming it on “unprecedented demand” as the omicron variant spread over the holidays and into the New Year.
“There’s been an unprecedented demand for tests. So what we have done over the course of the last few weeks, even before that, is the president quadrupled our testing capacity since the summer,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday. “If you look to about a year ago, there [were] about 900,000, or maybe slightly higher, tests that were being issued every day. Now we’re about 10 or 11 million.”
The nationwide surge in cases and difficulties testing has led to reduced emergency service hours and business and school closures.
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Psaki said the effort to stand up national testing sites and mail rapid at-home tests to people’s homes is underway, as well as other options. “But we needed to make sure the market was growing,” she added. “That’s what we’ve been working on, and increase our access to supply.”
And starting Saturday, private insurers will be expected to cover the cost of up to eight tests per month, according to a White House policy outlined Monday, helping to screen for infections and limit the spread.
Still, a top Biden health official said the administration foresaw a surge in cases last year. “We knew that omicron had this capacity to increase at this rate,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky told PBS NewsHour in December.
A report last month claimed that the Biden administration dismissed an October proposal to send free at-home rapid tests to people ahead of the holidays. Many have been unable to determine whether they or others in their households have caught the virus, leading to omicron’s wildfire spread, including among those who have received two COVID-19 vaccine shots and a booster.
Asked why the president has continued to declare the health crisis a pandemic of the unvaccinated, Psaki said the inoculated have better health outcomes.
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“You are 17 times more likely to go to the hospital if you’re not vaccinated, 20 times more likely to die,” she said. “I had minor symptoms. There’s a huge difference between that and being unvaccinated.”
