States Hit Supply Limitations as They Plan to Expand Virus Tests
- Arizona, Texas faced short supply of chemicals, test kits
- Federal strategy has left screening responsibilities to states
This article is for subscribers only.
As coronavirus cases swelled across the Sun Belt, hot-spot states including Texas and Arizona sought help from veterinary labs and mental-health clinics for testing capacity, but kept running into a shortage of materials, according to documents released Monday.
Several state public-health departments laid out plans to pour money into new staff and machinery but were bound by thin stockpiles of key materials, according to testing documents submitted last month to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and released on Monday. Officials told HHS that supplies needed to collect patient samples and chemicals called reagents used to process tests were difficult to come by.