Feds to ship fast COVID-19 tests to assisted living sites, admiral says
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal official said Tuesday the government plans to ship rapid coronavirus tests to assisted living facilities, moving to fill a testing gap for older adults who don’t need the constant attention of a nursing home.
Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brett Giroir said assisted living facilities will be followed by senior day care centers and home health agencies in getting the tests.
The tests will come from a supply of 150 million ordered from test maker Abbott Laboratories. Abbott’s rapid test, the size of a credit card, is the first that doesn’t require specialty computer equipment to process. It delivers results in about 15 minutes and is priced at $5, significantly lower than similar older tests.
Until
now, the government’s effort to improve COVID-19 testing for vulnerable
older adults has been focused on nursing homes, which are overseen by
Medicare. Assisted living facilities don’t provide skilled nursing care
and are outside of Medicare’s purview. Nursing homes have already been
receiving another kind of fast test, from different manufacturers.
In
an interview, Giroir said the government had been planning to expand
rapid testing beyond nursing homes, and the advent of the new Abbott
test now makes that possible.
“The distribution plan will make
sure there are enough tests in the system so that these individuals can
get tested roughly along the same lines as (people in) the nursing
homes,” Giroir said. “We are expanding from the highest risk to the next
risk.”
The nursing home and assisted living industry, which has
complained about being overlooked by the federal government, welcomed
the development.
“Assisted living providers have not received
federal support during this pandemic, and this is a positive step in the
right direction,” said a statement from the industry group American
Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living. The group
said the questions about resupplying tests will have to be addressed.
Giroir
said he expects tests to start going out in two to three weeks. The
Defense Department will be in charge of getting the tests to more than
20,000 assisted living facilities.
It’s part of a larger effort
to send tens of millions of tests to states, where they can be used to
help safely reopen schools, he said.
Long-term care facilities,
including nursing homes and assisted living, account for a sliver of the
U.S. population but more than 40% of the deaths from COVID-19.
The
issue is politically sensitive for President Donald Trump, who is
facing disapproval of his administration’s handling of the pandemic
while trying to hang on to support from older voters in his bid for
reelection.
The nursing home industry and advocates for the
elderly say the government’s response has been disjointed, and that
Washington has been slow to guarantee that nursing homes have access to
needed testing and supplies of masks, gowns, and other protective gear.
Giroir said roughly 800,000-900,000 people are in assisted living facilities, while another 1 million seniors are served by adult day care centers. These centers provide daytime activities for older people still living at home. About 1.5 million people work in home health care.
Associated Press writer Matthew Perrone contributed to this report.