Sam’s club has the BinaxNOW tests at 14 for the pair of tests. Cost should be something below that. They have been going in and out of stock, hopefully the defense production act addresses that.
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I don’t think the defense production act sets a price for the factories, but just directs them to use all equipment to produce the needed items. Jeeps not sports cars, uniforms not wedding dresses. When the toilet paper shortage hit last April, the factories had to switch from producing paper for offices and restaurants (and the packaging) to grocery store quality and packaging. The government didn’t order it, but it wasn’t cheaper for the manufactures to produce, just different.
At $5 or more per test, no one is going to be buying 30 tests per month or even one per week for everyone in the family. People might buy them for airline travel or a vacation, but not to go to work every day.
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Hopefully that’s where we are heading.
Part of the issue at Abbott is they are having a difficult time finding enough people to work in the plants that produce BinaxNow home based rapid tests. FDA has to approve more rapid tests…Germany has somewhere between 100 and 200 different rapid tests on the market.
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Didn’t Abbott shut down the factory and destroy inventory, presumably under the assumption that there would be no demand for the tests due to conditions in May/June? Of course, then the Delta variant came…
It would help if the inexpensive rapid tests that Mina has been advocating for were available for daily use (or any time when one will be going some place where they may be in risk contact with others, such as going to in-person classes). They could also be used at entry to indoor college dining halls and other higher risk-of-spread situations like college basketball arenas. Even a fraternity hosting a party may want to use them on party entrants to reduce the risk of a superspreader event and attending bad publicity.
But a BinaxNow test is too expensive for most to consider using in this way.
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Yes, that’s what the NY Times recent article said about Abbott…and now, they are having a hard time hiring and scaling up again.
Well. The forthcoming OSHA vax regulation is a massive relief, and it should have some interesting effects at larger universities that don’t require vax, since students make up a large part of the workforce. IRS treats “students” and “employees” differently, which has made life tricky for grad students and postdocs for years (part of longstanding anti-union movements), but I think OSHA does not. I’ll have to ask in HR on Monday. If students are included, then a large portion of the campus will have to be vaccinated if it wants to keep going to work, and so will the remnant hospital/medical-campus employees who’ve refused.
All that’s left now is a vax mandate for students over 18. If that slots in, I go back to campus and teach in a classroom.
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I wonder what went on in those meetings, really. Delta was plenty visible, and surely there were lots of people at Abbott who knew it’d just be a matter of time before Delta arrived. I wonder if they feared it’d take long enough that some of the tests might be too old by then, or dodgy, and then if people sold them anyway, there could be massive brand reputational risk, the kind that takes a long time to recover from.
I was reading a that the OSHA regulations regarding vaccination could take until fall 2022 to come into effect because they have to be written and then I believe they are subject to some sort of comment period, and if there are lawsuits that could delay their implementation further. I hope this isn’t the case.
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Me too, especially since DOL was supposed to have nailed this down back in May or so. But yes, I imagine you’re right, and that they’ll hold the comment period.
In response to the situation at an unnamed NESCAC, Bates has upped their testing to twice/week. No positives since move-in. 
it stays that way. Students are all masked indoors except when dining and in their dorms. They reported a 98% vaccine rate so far.
Whatever it takes to keep them learning/dining in person is ok with me.
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An email just came out from Amherst admin indicating what changes will happen on Monday, September 13. They will resume indoor dining in Valentine Dining Hall at 30% capacity (200-225 seats), increase the boundary for travel from the town of Amherst to the entirety of Hampshire County (need to fill out a form to get approval to travel outside of Hampshire County), and increase accessibility to the scheduling of events.
Testing twice a week will continue (in light of the Connecticut College situation), students must continue to wear masks indoors (including in residence halls), no non-Amherst community members can come in buildings (including residence halls) unless they are taking a class at Amherst (i.e. other Five College students; in which case they are only permitted access to the building(s) in which they have class. 50% capacity limit for indoor events unrelated to academics. Students required to wear KN95s in classrooms and other academic spaces operating at near 100% capacity.
I take back what I said earlier about the regulations being largely performative: I believe @wisteria100 was right. D has heard from CA’s (equivalent to RA’s at most universities) that the college has hired CSA’s (Community Safety Assistants) to patrol the dorms at night to ensure no parties are happening. They had always planned to do this for the year, but put it off because CA’s protested this move (believing it would make students, particularly students of color, feel uncomfortable since CSA’s technically work for ACPD), and have put it in place starting this weekend because of both the on-campus parties that have been happening in the past two weeks and the situation at Connecticut College.
Also, we had a student test positive Thursday and two other students test positive yesterday, putting the number of COVID-positive students at 3. They believe the student who tested positive Thursday was not connected to the two students who tested positive Friday, and none of them have close contacts requiring quarantine, as vaccinated students are not required to quarantine if they are a close contact, but are required to wear masks indoors and outdoors and avoid indoor dining (since contact tracing is important, they provide amnesty to students who test positive and their close contacts in exchange for honest information about where they could have got the virus from and any close contacts they had; students who lie in contact tracing put themselves at risk of suspension or expulsion).
Hoping they don’t see a large increase in cases like Bowdoin or Conn College!
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How could positive cases have zero close contacts if they have roommates? I don’t see how anyone on any college campus could have zero close contacts.
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Deleted.
No close contacts REQUIRING QUARANTINE; not no close contacts at all. Which is very different because vaccinated students are not required to quarantine if a close contact (but they ARE required to wear masks everywhere, indoors and outdoors; also, they cannot dine indoors). Also I’m pretty sure close contacts have to be tested daily by PCR (which is good because PCR can pick up positives before people turn contagious, thus helping in preventing an outbreak).
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I just read there were 43 Covid cases at Bowdoin and CDC is investigating.
Why would 43 cases trigger a CDC investigation?
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maybe @homerdog knows
I’m trying to read the story but the link is broken. That’s what I was wondering. Tufts announced a rise in cases and said every single positive covid was vaccinated.
Lehigh is at almost 350 cases. I might send a team there first.
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wow