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If you needed a COVID test, right now, what is your strategy? Maybe you plan to go

wait in line for one of those PCR tests that'll get shipped off to a lab. Maybe you've got a

stash of ad home tests, squirreled away in your bathroom. Or maybe, like a lot of folks,

you're just hoping you're not going to need a test. I have got five little antigen tests in my

house, and I'm going to parcel them out based on nothing more than a gut reaction. How bad is

that headache? Just how exposed was my kid? And I'm one of the lucky ones. Even Lydia DePillis,

who writes about COVID testing over a pro-publica, doesn't have a secret for how to get your hands on

a nasal swab. I didn't have time to go out and get any before they were all gone in the pre-holiday

rush. And, you know, I don't have kids or a family, so I didn't have, you know, I kind of didn't

want to take up the supply by ordering a bunch on the internet. So I have a couple now, finally,

from the free distributions in DC, which started after the holidays very inconveniently, but they

are around now. Lydia says, the shortages you're hearing about now, especially for those ad home

tests. Some people call them lateral flow tests. They're actually the trickle-down impact of all kinds

of other shortages, which is what makes fixing this problem so hard. It's not just ordering up a

bunch of tests. It's also saying, okay, we have factories that need to produce the nitrocellulose

strips that go into lateral flow tests. We need to make sure there's capacity for producing swabs,

...