Worker shortages, flight delays contributing to slow delivery of rapid tests

With millions of COVID-19 rapid tests ready for distribution in the U.S., delays in delivery are being caused by warehouse bottlenecks and worker shortages.

Rebeca Andrade had been waiting days for a shipment of COVID-19 rapid tests to help keep her school open. The superintendent of a school in Salinas, California, Andrade said she wanted to be testing kids once a week to slow the spread of the omicron variant and protect the community.

But even as rapid testing to keep schools open was being pushed at the highest levels of government, Andrade was coming up short.

That's because 350 miles away, some 17 million tests -- including some earmarked by the California Department of Public Health for schools like Andrade's, plus nursing homes, homeless shelters and childcare centers -- sat backlogged on giant pallets for days.

Like so many other vital goods, precious at-home rapid tests have been caught in the supply-chain snare, caused by a combination of workers calling out sick with omicron and bottlenecked warehouses that are already operating over capacity to handle the massive demand for tests.