Coronavirus Testing Machines Are Latest Bottleneck In Troubled Supply Chain
Civilian labs and the Army say they've had trouble getting big machines that run hundreds of coronavirus tests at once. Public health experts say that's holding the U.S. back from ramping up testing.
Coronavirus testing in the U.S. has run into a number of snags, from a lack of nasal swabs to not enough chemicals needed to run the tests.
Now there's a new bottleneck emerging: A shortage of the machines that process the tests and give results.
Civilian labs and the Pentagon say they've had trouble getting the sophisticated, automated machines that can run hundreds of diagnostic tests at once. Three machine manufacturers — Hologic Inc., Roche and Abbott Laboratories — have confirmed to NPR that demand is outstripping supply.
Public health experts say the machine shortages are upending a complicated supply chain just as the shortages of
