President Donald Trump will tout a major expansion of rapid coronavirus testing in his Thursday night address at the Republican National Convention, POLITICO first reported and White House officials confirmed.
Trump will announce that the administration has struck a $750 million deal to acquire 150 million tests from Abbott Laboratories, which three individuals with knowledge of the announcement said are set to be deployed in nursing homes, schools and other areas with populations at high risk.
"This is a major development that will help our country to remain open, get Americans back to work, and kids back to school," said White House spokesperson Alyssa Farah.
Abbott received an emergency authorization from the FDA on Wednesday for its rapid BinaxNOW test, which costs $5 and can produce results in 15 minutes without the use of any lab equipment. Abbott has said that it will be able to produce about 50 million tests per month by October.
The move represents a significant expansion of the nation's coronavirus testing, which has experienced frequent bottlenecks in recent months that prevented rapid turnaround of test results. The United States has tested about 22 million people in the last month.
In his address to the GOP convention, Trump will speak about the new tests as part of his administration's response to an outbreak that has led to the deaths of about 180,000 Americans. One person said that Trump and his administration would tout that the Abbott tests were “made in America” and a domestic response to a virus that first emerged in China.
But the timing of the FDA's emergency authorization and the administration's pending announcement — pegged to Trump's primetime speech — has raised questions about whether the decisions were held for political benefit. Two officials said that the plan to grant emergency authorization for the Abbott tests and subsequently purchase millions of them has been under consideration for at least a week.
Public health experts have long clamored for cheap, rapid coronavirus tests that could provide results at the point of care. "They need to be used in the right way," said former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who previously worked in the Trump administration and called for the development of such tests in January. "But they have the potential to change our response."
The BinaxNOW test, which requires a nasal swab, is different from Abbott's ID NOW test, which the White House has relied on for rapid testing despite the potential for false-negatives. The new test uses the same lateral-flow technology as over-the-counter pregnancy tests — displaying its results on small card, rather than a stick.
Details about the Trump administration's contract, overseen in a joint effort between HHS and the Defense Department, were publicly posted on a government contracting website on Thursday afternoon. Abbott declined to comment.
The Trump administration has come under scrutiny for its posture on coronavirus testing, including this week for White House-directed changes to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance to stop promoting testing for people without symptoms. Administration officials have maintained that physicians and the CDC signed off on the change.
David Lim contributed to this report.
