Florida got an extension on those expired COVID tests. This time, can we actually use them? | Editorial
The state of Florida has another three months to do the right thing on those expired COVID tests.
Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie told Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried on Tuesday in Tallahassee that the state has gotten a three-month extension from the federal government to use a million or so rapid COVID tests that the state had allowed to expire, unused, in a state government warehouse — while the omicron variant surged in places like Miami-Dade County.
That’s great. We hope Guthrie and Gov. DeSantis have a plan to put those tests to good use in the next three months. But given the administration’s push to reduce testing, we’re not so sure.
Don’t forget, all of this happened only after Fried, a Democrat running for governor against DeSantis, brought the stockpile to light on social media. She called the situation either “negligent or heartless.” It wasn’t until about a week later that the DeSantis administration finally acknowledged that a big pile of rapid tests had been expiring while Floridians sat in lines around the block waiting for COVID tests.
Guthrie said the state had been waiting to see if it would get a second three-month extension from the Food and Drug Administration and the company that makes the rapid tests, Abbott. But neither he nor the governor — despite a lot of contortions — offered any credible explanation for why the state didn’t start using the tests when it knew their expiration was approaching.
No doubt it was mere coincidence that the governor and his surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, have started advocating to “unwind the testing psychology.”
We get it, and so should you. Less testing means fewer cases will be detected. A lower case count — even if it’s not real — means a rosier outlook for a governor running for reelection.
So now the state has gotten what it said it wanted. The tests are valid for another three months. Awesome. This time, how about actually using them.