Saying governors have “had enough,” Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam spoke Wednesday about the compact he entered into with the governors of six other states of both parties to buy coronavirus testing supplies.
“This is another way that the states are leading the national response to COVID-19,” Northam said of the deal, in which he partnered with Republican Govs. Larry Hogan, of Maryland; Charlie Baker, of Massachusetts, and Mike DeWine, of Ohio; as well as Democratic Govs. John Bel Edwards, of Louisiana; Gretchen Whitmer, of Michigan; and Roy Cooper, of North Carolina.
In partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, the compact states will be able to buy a half-million rapid antigen tests each, for a total of 3.5 million — enough purchasing power to be able to negotiate affordable prices, Northam hoped.
Northam emphasized the lack of a federal response as making the move necessary.
While Dr. Deborah Birx, of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, “validated” the state’s efforts in a meeting last week, “That message hasn’t been coming from the White House,” Northam said.
Governors have had to compete for supplies, “and despite no leadership, no guidance, we’re where we are today,” he said.
Though antigen tests are not as reliable as PCR tests, which Northam referred to as “the gold standard,” results can be had in 15 to 20 minutes. Depending on testing location, the more accurate tests can take days or even weeks, which in some cases scarcely makes them worth taking.
Northam said the reliability of antigen tests is improving, and gave routine testing of residents and staff at long-term care facilities as an example of where they could do the most good.
Dr. Daniel Carey, Virginia’s secretary of Health and Human Resources, said it isn’t known yet how much each test would cost, but expressed confidence that the combined purchasing power of the seven states would save everyone money.
Reaching underserved populations
Northam said he was in Norfolk, Virginia, last week, and spoke with officials at the health department there who told him a discouraging fact: Health officials knocked on about 4,000 doors in an effort to spread the word for people to show up to a testing site, but nine showed up.
Community leaders and clergymen in Norfolk made a video where they all got tested on screen in order to show the safety of the test. The video was shown at Wednesday’s briefing, and Pastor Keith Jones Shiloh Baptist Church, in Norfolk, one of the participants, said the point was to reach people who had grown up with a distrust of medical institutions.
The pandemic has illuminated the need for leadership, Jones said, as well as the racial dimension of health care inequalities.
Releasing guidelines and procedures is one thing, he said, but making sure people have the access to Wi-Fi, smartphones and other means of getting the information is another.
“How do we care for a community that has been chronically underserved” and has “a mistrust of health institutions?” He said the video would help reach those populations, and Northam said he hoped it would be “a model for the rest of Virginia.”
‘Encouraging’ signs
Northam also discussed the commonwealth’s latest coronavirus numbers.
He said Virginia was averaging about 1,000 new cases a day, close to its record. On the other hand, testing is up, with an average of between 15,000 and 20,000 tests being performed a day, and the percentage of positivity is at 7.2%, which has held roughly steady for several weeks. “That’s a good thing,” he said.
Northam reimposed some safety restrictions in the eastern part of the state last week, and said Wednesday that the seven-day trend line of cases in the eastern region “is leveling off somewhat, which is encouraging.”
The percentage of COVID-19 tests in the eastern part of the state, in the Norfolk and Hampton Roads areas, was at about 10%, decreasing slightly.
“This is also encouraging,” the governor said, “but we can’t let up.”
App announced
Also at the briefing, Northam announced that Virginia has rolled out a smartphone app to automatically notify people if they might have been exposed to the coronavirus, becoming the first U.S. state to use new pandemic technology created by Apple and Google.
The free Covidwise app is available in Apple and Android app stores as of Wednesday.
Read more from The Associated Press.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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