Federal Government to Decide if Covid-19 Test Kits are Salvageable

Tallahassee, FL—Florida’s legislative and other leaders are calling out Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration after learning they allowed up to one million Covid-19 test kits to expire.

Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried, a Democrat who’s running for governor against DeSantis, initially exposed the issue.

“The tests could have really helped during the current Covid surge, which has seen long lines at testing sites across the state. I’m absolutely outraged by the fact of complete dereliction of his responsibility,” Fried said. “There should have been some proactive approach at some point to have either already asked for the waiver or to have done some type of swapping out with other facilities that may have had tests that were going to expire at a later point of time.”

Fried said DeSantis needs to do better, as thousands of people wait in long lines to get tested for the virus amid the new omicron variant.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management acknowledged that between 800,000 and 1 million Covid-19 test kits had an original expiration date in September, but the FDA said the kits could still be used through December.

Last September DeSantis replaced the state’s Health Department secretary with Dr. Joseph Ladapo, a former researcher at UCLA and is a graduate of Harvard Medical School. A devout anti-vaxxer and one of the few medical professionals who dismiss the severity and danger of Covid-19 as a public health issue, will serve as both surgeon general and secretary of the state’s Department of Health.

“Florida will completely reject fear as a way of making policies in public health,” Dr. Ladapo said at the time of his appointment on Sept. 22, 2021. DeSantis is in agreement; he has not only refused to order or even encourage residents to be tested, or to require masks in public places. In fact, he has taken the opposite tack: with a compliant Republican legislature, he has enacted numerous state laws and regulations prohibiting school districts and local governments from taking any proactive measures such as requiring vaccinations or masks by public servants.

DeSantis defended his administration’s handling of the test kits that expired in a state-run warehouse, saying they tried to give out the tests prior to its expiration date but at the time there was not as high a demand for testing. The Florida Division of Emergency Management recently acknowledge that the test kits had an original expiration date in September, but the FDA said the kits could still be used through December.

The state of Florida has not received an answer from the federal government as to whether the Covid-19 test kits are still usable.