Coronavirus

DeSantis admin says 1 million COVID-19 tests expired in a Florida warehouse

By Joshua Shin

January 7, 2022 6:49pm

Updated: January 9, 2022 9:00am

The Florida Department of Emergency Management announced on Thursday that as many as 1 million rapid tests expired in a warehouse last month.

“We received a three-month extension on those test kits, which ended up expiring between Dec. 26 to Dec. 30. We tried to give them out beforehand but there was no demand for it,” said Kevin Guthrie, the department’s director.

Guthrie confirmed that between 800,000 and 1 million Abbott rapid COVID-19 tests had expired. He said another extension had been requested, but the state had not yet heard back from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Gov. Ron DeSantis echoed that there wasn’t sufficient demand for COVID-19 tests in Florida, saying people were not taking tests for "months and months" following a sharp decline in cases of the previous "delta" variant.

“[Division of Emergency Management] has been asking about that for many, many weeks anticipating that,” DeSantis said Friday. “Basically, the way they [the federal government] do this is they always want to have enough tests if people need them, they send them down … the results of that is we had a stockpile, but no one really wanted them for many, many months.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is in charge of monitoring the expiration dates of tests it distributes to states.

DeSantis' Democratic critics have pointed to recent spikes in cases to press the governor on the issue.

On Dec. 21, Miami-Dade County’s mayor Daniella Levin Cava wrote to Florida’s Surgeon General asking that “all possible tests be directed to Miami-Dade County to meet the growing demand for testing in our community.”

They expired on the heels of this December 21st letter to the State Surgeon General by Miami-Dade County’s Mayor asking “that all possible tests be directed to Miami-Dade County…to meet the growing demand for testing in our community.” #florida #covid #testing pic.twitter.com/CPfIDsKrX9
— Christina Boomer Vazquez (@CBoomerVazquez) January 6, 2022

Last week, Florida agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried issued a statement asking DeSantis to release a supposed stockpile in the state’s Department of Health.

“Given the governor’s lack of transparency throughout this pandemic, there’s no known public information about these tests or how soon they expire. With omicron infections exploding throughout Florida, I beg of him to release these tests immediately,” said Fried.

It's come to my attention that @HealthyFla has a significant number of #COVID19 tests stockpiled and set to expire.

I beg of @GovRonDeSantis: release these tests immediately to local governments, and set up state-run testing sites.

To let them expire is negligent, or heartless. pic.twitter.com/VF2T8w1HCo
— Commissioner Nikki Fried (@NikkiFriedFL) December 30, 2021