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FEMA Ordered $10.2 Million in COVID-19 Testing Kits It's Now Warning States Not to Use:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has warned states not to use COVID-19 testing supplies it bought under a $10.2 million contract after a ProPublica investigation last week showed the vendor was providing contaminated and unusable mini soda bottles.
[...] ProPublica reported on June 18 that Fillakit was using plastic preforms, which are expanded with heat and pressure to become 2-liter soda bottles, to fulfill FEMA's contract for testing supplies to be used by states. The bottles were shoveled into the warehouse, then filled with saline in what workers described as unsanitary conditions. Some of the states receiving the lab equipment told ProPublica that even if Fillakit's tubes weren't contaminated, they were simply too big to be used in lab machinery.
[...] The FEMA spokeswoman said the agency continues to provide "critically needed testing supplies in a timely manner to our state and local partners in response to the coronavirus."
FEMA signed its first deal with Fillakit on May 7, just six days after the company was formed by an ex-telemarketer repeatedly accused of fraudulent practices over the past two decades. Fillakit has supplied a total of more than 3 million tubes, which FEMA then approved and sent to all 50 states.
Wexler has previously declined to comment. A ProPublica reporter visited the facility this month and confirmed that workers were using snow shovels to gather up tubes and filling them, all in the open air.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Sunday June 28 2020, @06:45AM (4 children)
In a period of urgency/emergency I think we can cut some slack. To me this seems like the solyndra situation. There is a sense of urgency to fix a problem (climate change, pandemic) and a wide net is thrown out to procure resources and look for new ideas that can benefit the whole. You know there will be failures, but you hope the successes outshine those failures.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing [ourworldindata.org]
How many tests are performed each day?
Those results look pretty good with the US leading the pack, although it doesn't look as logarithmic as I would like.
Vendor should be fucked though. Were they doing the classic move of seeing the system isn't doing checks and sending hammers over for 50k? Or did they try and have a manufacturing error?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @08:33AM
Don't auto-mutilate, Sulla, don't cut your dick off even if is slack.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday June 28 2020, @02:53PM (2 children)
To me is sounds more like corruption. The incompetence required to do this by accident is such that speaking normally would be impossible.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @05:30PM (1 child)
When a company that didn't exist a week before it is awarded a $11M contract, then yes, it is corruption. They should be happy that they are at least delivering something, which is more than some of these fraudulent companies do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2020, @12:41AM
Delivering something unusable isn't an improvement because people then have to waste time disposing of the garbage.