Skip to content

America’s Covid Swab Supply Depends on Two Cousins Who Hate Each Other

The pandemic brought the business opportunity of a lifetime to Puritan Medical Products of Guilford, Maine. But even a $250 million infusion from the U.S. government has done little to quell an epic family feud.

Updated on
relates to America’s Covid Swab Supply Depends on Two Cousins Who Hate Each Other
Illustration: Pete Sharp; Photographer: Tristan Spinski for Bloomberg Businessweek (stick); Source: Puritan Medical Products (swab)

A year ago, on Friday, March 13, about 50 government officials and experts met for the first time to talk about a crucial problem: how to test more Americans to determine if they were infected with the novel coronavirus. Jared Kushner stopped by; Mike Pence made an appearance later that weekend. SARS-CoV-2 had spread to more than a hundred countries—Tom Hanks had been infected in Australia—and the death toll in the U.S. was expected to reach as high as 250,000. Offices, schools, and streets were emptying; stocks were plunging. The NBA had just suspended its season. It was the official start of the global pandemic.

Megaphone.fm: Swab Story by Listen to the Story