After President Biden promised 500 million at-home COVID-19 tests to American households late last year, a small team within the U.S. government created a national system to accelerate delivery of the tests to people’s homes for free.
ASPR’s Testing and Diagnostic Working Group (TDWG) and H-CORE (HHS Coordination Operations and Response Element), a new entity within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), embarked on this historic endeavor with a Jan. 24 deadline for launch. With omicron at its peak, the country needed at-home rapid tests. H-CORE, with its operational and logistical capability, took the lead in coordinating this unprecedented effort.
Many hurdles had to be cleared before even one test reached one household: form an interagency, public-private team and acquire all such tests available without disrupting retail sales or state fulfillments; and procure on the open global market every available test authorized on an emergency basis by the FDA.
TDWG, in cooperation with the Defense Department, handled the heavy lift of procuring and receiving tests from across the globe, then inspecting, packing, and delivering them to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) distribution sites across the country; sometimes handling 10 million tests a day.
USPS, with its one-of-a-kind database of all U.S. households and existing website abilities, was the preferred method for the American public to order and deliver the kits.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra describes H-CORE as the logistical and operational hub at HHS for accelerating and synchronizing the research, development, production, and delivery of COVID vaccines and treatments. Nested in ASPR, H-CORE, formerly Operation Warp Speed and the Countermeasures Acceleration Group, is built on HHS’s successful partnerships with the Defense Department and state and local partners.
The home test-kit mission is just an example of what this new entity can do. H-CORE has already delivered more than 727 million vaccines, more than 9 million antibody and antiviral courses to ward off Covid-19 and more than 270 million N95 masks from the National Strategic Stockpile—the largest deployment of personal protective equipment in U.S. history, to name a few.
No matter what the future holds, H-CORE is ready to get critical services and supplies when and where needed to save lives.
