In just seven short months, the COVID-19 pandemic has swept across the globe. Over 13 million individual cases have been confirmed and more than half a million individuals have succumbed to COVID-19. Here in the United States, more than 3.4 million Americans have been infected and more than 135,000 Americans have lost their lives to the virus. Millions more have seen their lives radically altered by the associated economic crisis.

COVID-19 showed a clear lack of adequate preparation for a pandemic that cannot be laid solely on one single administration or any one party in Congress. For decades, Republicans and Democrats in both the administration and in Congress have devoted inadequate attention and resources to critical pieces of our public health system.

Perhaps nowhere in the public health system is the lack of attention or investment more

evident than in our nation’s capacity to test effectively, efficiently, and with precision. COVID-19 has made clear that our nation’s diagnostic testing capacity was not up to the standards necessary to protect Americans ahead of the coronavirus outbreak.

COVID-19 has shone a bright light on public policy issues related to diagnostic testing, however, these issues are not new. For over three years, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) and I have been working on diagnostic testing reform legislation. We introduced this legislation, the VALID Act, just as COVID-19 began to widely spread in the United States and it was becoming evident our nation’s testing capacity was insufficient to the challenge posed by the virus.

The VALID Act would establish a comprehensive, risk-based framework for oversight of diagnostic tests, providing laboratories greater flexibility and certainty to respond to public health emergencies while keeping patients safe.

While the VALID Act addresses many long-standing issues related to diagnostic testing, the more immediate need is diagnostic testing for COVID-19, specifically bolstering the testing capacity of our nation’s public health labs and ensuring that patients have access to rapid point of care testing – particularly in underserved communities.

While private lab companies play an indispensable role in our health care system, public health labs play a critical role in identifying and managing large-scale public health threats. However, the current testing ability of our public health labs is limited by a lack of high-throughput testing platforms, which can simultaneously test thousands of samples using automated processes.

The White House Coronavirus Task Force has emphasized the use of high-throughput platforms in response to the COVID-19 crisis, yet, 46% of our public health laboratories are without even a single high-throughput testing platform on site. To help boost the testing capacity of our nation’s public health labs, DeGette and I introduced the Diagnostic Testing for Public Health Labs Act (H.R. 7025). This legislation would provide resources for public health laboratories to purchase high-throughput testing platforms and testing supplies to address a critical need in our nation’s public health system.

Additionally, it is important that we increase point-of-care testing capacity so that patients can be tested and receive quick results. To help expand point-of-care testing, DeGette and I also introduced the Rapid Testing for Communities Act (H.R. 7026). This legislation would expand point-of-care testing to areas of the country that are underserved. By increasing rapid turnaround testing outside of a laboratory, patients would be able to get tested and receive results directly from their health care provider while still in the doctor’s office, providing yet another tool in the toolbox for our health care workers.

Until an effective vaccine or therapeutic for COVID-19 is developed and widely available, the key to limiting the spread of the virus is testing. Together, the bills Rep. DeGette and I introduced would allow for increased testing capacity and shortened turnaround time for results.

These bills are a step in the right direction towards combating COVID-19, but there is still more work to be done in reforming diagnostic testing and improving our pandemic preparedness. Our nation’s capacity to widely administer rapid and accurate diagnostic testing is a challenge that our nation must meet if we are to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and guard against future disease outbreaks having the ability to become a pandemic.