This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, September 17th, 2021.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Biden administration's vaccine or test mandate means more testing.

And yet the Biden administration waited until

this announcement to do much of anything to advance the availability of home

rapid COVID testing that's widely available in other countries.

Cato Scott Linsicum discusses why U.S. public health

institutions are so far behind the rest of the world.

Joe Biden recently announced a few things, the most notable of which was a new vaccine mandate that he wants to impose on

up to and including a hundred million private sector workers.

And I don't like that idea,

but paired with that idea was a ramping up of rapid tests.

And I can remember, maybe about a year ago at this time, crossing my fingers with

tickets to see my favorite band later in the summer thinking this is it this is going to be the

thing that saves us this is going to be the thing that lets live music happen again

I can go see bands over and over and just, you know, do a quick test and then they let me in and I can go see the band and I can, people can feel safe around me and I won't have to wear a mask it'll be great and then nothing

nothing at all I see people posting photos to Twitter from Europe of here are my rapid tests that I

get in the mail every week from the government that's leaving aside all the other policies of those governments, but why didn't

we get the thing that we all wanted to get back to our lives. I was told and I believed that

testing, rapid testing was gonna be the thing to save us.

Yeah, it's, I mean there's a practical and a philosophical problem.

The practical problem is that the FDA, which is authorized to approve these rapid tests,

...