Up to 1 Million COVID tests expired in Florida stockpile

Florida – According to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s top emergency management officials, 800,000 to 1 million COVID test kits in the state’s stockpile recently expired without being used.

Kevin Guthrie, the director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management says: “We had between 800,000 and a million test kits, Abbott rapid test kits, in our warehouse that did expire.”

According to Guthrie, the reason the tests expired in the last week of December was that there was inadequate demand for their use.

State officials had already requested a three-month extension on the tests’ use from federal officials when they were last set to expire in September, only for the tests to again sit unused.

According to Guthrie, Florida officials are again seeking a three-month extension on the tests, but have yet to receive an answer on their continued viability from federal officials and the manufacturer.

Tests from the stockpile were being sent out to localities as requested and that demand for them slowed beginning in September when the COVID case surge attributed to the delta variant began to cool down, DeSantis said.

“There was no withholding of anything,” DeSantis said.