President Biden's new winter Covid agenda ==> Vaccinations + rapid self-tests

Last update: Saturday 12/4/21

A few days ago President Biden announced a new nine point agenda for fighting Covid. Yes he's still pushing full vaccinations and boosters, but his new agenda's big news is rapid home tests. This good news is long overdue. Yes, everyone should be vaccinated, but breakthrough cases, i.e., infections of vaccinated persons, have been occurring with increasing frequency.  Without widely available, affordable rapid self tests, previous recommendations for "safe" gatherings of families and friends on holidays, other celebrations, and workplace meetings have been fraught with substantial unacknowledged risks. 

President Biden's plan will provide free at home test kits to all Americans. He had previously declared that the federal government would spend one billion dollars to increase the supply of home tests, but his new announcement moves home tests to the center of his efforts because he now guarantees that there will be enough tests for everyone. 

• "President Biden Announces New Actions to Protect Americans Against the Delta and Omicron Variants as We Battle COVID-⁠19 this Winter", President Biden, The White House, 12/2/21
  
  
• "How at-home coronavirus testing is becoming part of Biden’s plan for managing the pandemic", Derek Hawkins and Fenit Nirappil, Washington Post, 9/12/21 
  
  
• "Rapid Tests Are the Answer to Living With Covid-19", Michael J. Mina and Steven Phillips, NY Times, 10/1/21 
  
  
• "The White House says it will spend $1 billion to increase the supply of rapid at-home tests.", Noah Weilanda, NY Times, 10/7/21
  
  
• "In Biden’s Plan for Free Rapid Tests, Legwork Will Be Required", Sarah Kliff and Reed Abelson, NY Times, 12/3/21

Other countries, notably the United Kingdom, have been making free packs of rapid test kits available to their citizens for some time now.  Users who test positive on the rapid tests are advised to get a more accurate PCR test to confirm their infections as soon as possible.

• "At-home COVID tests are a free, easy part of everyday life in the U.K., and the U.S. has taken note", CBS News, 10/13/21
  
  
• "Order coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid lateral flow tests", National Health Service (NHS) ... Note: This government Web page shows how easy it is for Brits to order free rapid home test kits

Without rapid home tests, asymptomatic and even mild breakthrough cases have posed unacknowledged risks of infecting others in family gatherings and workplace meetings. Even if all attendees were vaccinated, breakthroughs could still infect other attendees if no one wore masks or kept social distancing.

For example, a few weeks ago Dr. Fauci blessed Thanksgiving gatherings wherein all of the attendees were fully vaccinated and, ideally, had also received their booster shots if they were eligible. But his blessing ignored the possibility that one or more attendees might have been breakthroughs, i.e., vaccinated but infected, and asymptomatic or only showing mild symptoms. Sitting around the dinner table, not wearing masks even between chews, exchanging "Why I am thankful" prayers with the other members of the family, the breakthroughs were ideally situated to become super spreaders. While most of the vaccinated guests infected by the breakthroughs would have been asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, some friends and relatives, who were older or diabetics or immunocompromised might have spent the rest of the holiday in the hospital.

Given that tens of millions of families were determined to celebrate this Thanksgiving together, most were likely to have gathered round the turkey table no matter what Dr. Fauci said. Should he have more correctly advised them to buy rapid covid home tests, enough for all guests who were not regular attendees at the dinner table, make everybody wait outside in the hallway or on the front porch until they were tested, then admit the negatives and send all of the covid-positive friends and relatives back to their hotels??? 

This would have been a bad idea for many reasons, perhaps the most important being that home kits were in short supply and cost between $10 and $30 each. One could anticipate that affluent families would not only buy tests for Thanksgiving, they would also buy enough to accommodate all of their anticipated guests throughout the Thanksgiving-Christmas-Chunnakah-Kwanza-New Years holidays. In other words the affluent would buy up the lion's share of the limited supply leaving little or nothing for the less affluent, thereby casting a dark cloud of risk over less affluent family gatherings and adding yet another unwelcome blazing log of division to our holidays. The lower safety bar announced by Dr. Fauci was one that every family could achieve ==> only invite friends and relatives who were fully vaccinated. 

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Related notes on this blog: 

• "Omicron, Omega, and de facto Covid-Zero", Last update: 11/30/21
  
  
• "Tis the season for jolly folly", Last update: 11/27/21
  
  
• "From one pandemic to two overlapping endemics", Last update: 11/3/21
  
  
• "Let's stop repeating COVID myths", Last update: 11/1/21