Nearly a quarter of rapid antigen tests the US bought have gone unused, the Wall Street Journal reports.
In late September, former President Donald Trump announced the purchase of 150 million rapid, point-of-care SARS-CoV-2 antigen tests from Abbott Laboratories. At the time, 360Dx reported that about a third of the tests — company's BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card — were to go to nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and hospice care agencies and most were to go to the states, in part to help schools reopen.
But according to the Journal, concerns regarding the test's accuracy as well as logistical matters have limited its use. It reports that 32 million of the tests given to the states have not been used, in line with a December report from the Department of Health and Human Services that found 20 states still had half or more of the tests they had been given. The Journal adds that some state officials tell it there were concerns about how to roll the test out, as they are best at identifying infectious individuals and when used repeatedly on the same population, and some schools haven't adopted the tests due to the training required.