Welcome to the “COVID Testing Industrial Complex”, Which Is Fast Becoming a $100 Billion a Year Industry

By Jordan Schachtel
Global Research, March 26, 2021
The Dossier 14 December 2020
Region:
Theme: ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

This article was first published in December 2020.

The COVID-19 Testing Industrial Complex in the United States is completely out of control, and the American taxpayer has been drafted into churning out hundreds of millions of dollars per day to keep it afloat. This continually growing behemoth, which was spawned in 2020 because of the urgent insistence of select, powerful members of the U.S. “public health expert” class, has no intention of exiting the stage quietly. Individuals and healthcare-related corporations are getting filthy rich off of this broken, corrupt industry, which largely produces junk tests, and has contributed to an out of control, ongoing “casedemic” in the United States.

Despite the fact that this industry has failed to do anything positive for “public health” related to the coronavirus epidemic, some in the industry are even devising plans to put a COVID testing kit in every home in America. The COVID-19 Testing Industrial Complex has produced a shockingly high revenue stream over the course of a year.

To get a sense of all of the costs involved, I researched the average COVID-19 testing costs at some of the biggest labs and testing manufacturers in the U.S. The FDA has now cleared well over 100 entities (and even a dozen China-based companies) with Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) that allow for these companies to deploy tests in the United States. Here’s the breakdown:

The cost of COVID-19 tests range anywhere from $20-$850. The median cost of a COVID-19 test is around $129 per test. And that’s just the cost of the test itself. This price range does not include the additional costs — including, at a bare minimum for most, the costs of specimen collection and a doctor’s visit — to the insurance provider, federal, state and local governments (which has the taxpayer foot the bill for people who can’t afford a test), and/or the patient.

The United States COVID-19 Testing Industrial Complex now churns out around two million COVID-19 tests per day. That puts the current median cost for COVID testing in America (not including the additional costs) at approximately $254 million dollars per day, $7.6 billion per month, and $91.4 billion per year. To put that in context, That’s more annual cash than the revenue generated by U.S. corporate behemoths such as Boeing, Intel, FedEx, Facebook, and Target.

As for the profits being generated by the COVID testing industry, we can get an accurate count on that number by discovering the financial filings of major testing labs. Quest, the U.S. testing giant that handles about 20% of all COVID tests across the United States, estimates it takes in $42 in revenue per test, with the average processing coming in at $29. That would come out to $26 million in profits per day, $780 million per month, and $9.3 billion in pure profits per year. And that’s only for the lab side of the equation. Remember, getting a COVID-19 test involves several other elements, such as the aforementioned physician’s visit and specimen collection costs, which significantly increases the revenue stream for the entire COVID testing industry.

COVID testing is most rampant in the United States, but it is very much a global industry. Worldometers.com has tracked around 1.1 billion total COVID-19 tests. Calculated with the U.S. cost average, the global COVID testing industry has cost over $141 billion thus far.

Many have summarized that the ongoing vaccine deployment efforts will act to shutter the COVID Testing Industrial Complex, but it’s important to remember a few things about the current state of testing in America.

First and foremost, Our COVID-19 testing accuracy problem has not been solved. Governments on all levels in the United States have not cleaned up our inaccurate testing regime.

People who get the vaccine — putting aside whether it works or not — will very likely still test positive for the coronavirus in large numbers. The vaccine trials had very strict standards for diagnosing positive cases. The trials required both a positive test and recognizable symptoms for someone to be labeled COVID-19 positive.

In the clinical trials, Big Pharma outfits used a much lower cycle threshold (read about the cycle threshold problem at Rational Ground) than the average COVID-19 test in order to get a more accurate diagnosis.

On the other side of the table, Our FDA-authorized testing regime includes mostly junk tests (their cycle thresholds are too high, generating a massive amount of false positives, leading to our national “casedemic”) and diagnoses asymptomatic people as COVID-19 positive. The vaccine trials and our current testing reality are worlds apart. This problem will almost certainly emerge in the coming days and weeks, and it’s going to cause lots of confusion in the public. Who knows if the “public health experts” who are so inclined to promote testing will weaponize this problem to demand even more testing and more restrictions, to keep you safe and COVID-free, of course…

Now approaching $100 billion in annual costs directly associated with it, the COVID Testing Industrial Complex is becoming too big to fail, and it’s long past time for legislators across the nation to rein it in before this broken, corrupt industry becomes a permanent fixture in America.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from The Dossier
Articles by: Jordan Schachtel

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Centre of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post Global Research articles on community internet sites as long the source and copyright are acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original Global Research article. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [email protected]

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: [email protected]