| U.S. businesses with at least 100 workers may soon need to either require vaccinations or test employees weekly, under the Biden administration's latest move to push more Americans to get their shots. That could represent nearly double the volume of tests currently being done.
The ambitious move by President Joe Biden threatens to strain U.S. testing infrastructure in ways that are now sadly familiar: Think long lines, slow turnaround times for results and harder-to-find rapid tests. "There's simply not enough tests available to do the testing that's being called for," says Jennifer Nuzzo, lead epidemiologist for Johns Hopkins University's Covid-19 testing insights initiative. About 81 million workers were employed at firms with 100 or more employees as of early 2020. If a quarter remain unvaccinated, that could translate to as many as 20 million weekly tests. Over the past month, only around 10 million Americans were tested each week on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, though those numbers are probably at least somewhat higher.  Vehicles wait in line at a drive-thru Covid-19 testing site in Covington, Kentucky, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 8. Photographer: Jeffrey Dean/Bloomberg The vaccinate-or-test requirement is expected soon, under an emergency regulation from the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The Biden administration announced it late last week alongside news of a $2 billion investment into about 280 million rapid tests and use of the Defense Production Act to build out manufacturing. For companies concerned about the logistics of testing employees weekly, the easy solution is to get staff immunized, one official said. Part of what's at play here is simple supply and demand. As vaccine rates took off earlier this year and Covid-19 appeared to be in retreat, people were getting tested less. A sudden surge tied to the highly contagious delta variant changed that trend but caught many testing providers flat-footed. For some of the same reasons, it's difficult to predict how new pressures on testing might play out, especially because we don't even have an accurate count of testing volumes today. And it's not clear how much new government investments will expand capacity. But one thing is clear: The math, at least for now, just doesn't work.—Emma Court | 
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