Up to 1 million rapid Covid-19 tests expired in Florida last month, state official says
CNN
Amid a winter surge of coronavirus cases that sparked a nationwide scramble for tests last month, as many as 1 million unused Covid-19 rapid test kits expired in a Florida warehouse, a top state official said on Thursday.
The stockpile sat idle during the fall when cases fell in Florida and demand was low, Florida Department of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said during a news conference.
The kits, manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, expired "before December 26 to December 30," Guthrie said, just as the state experienced a wave of new coronavirus cases driven in part by the highly contagious Omicron variant.
President Joe Biden asserted Friday that Hamas has been degraded to a point where it can no longer carry out the type of attack that launched the current 8-month conflict in Gaza, laying out a three-phase proposal Israel has submitted to wind down the grinding crisis as he declared, “It’s time for this war to end.