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) by jasassin on Sunday June 28 2020, @03:32AM (9 children)
I can't believe FEMA is so stupid. It seems to me you'd have to intentionally screw pound's of pooches to pull this level of boneheadedness off.
Fermaldahyde trailers.
Zica coffins.
2 litre bottle Corona test-kits.
Jeez! What next? Lotto scratchers for the next hurricane victims?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday June 28 2020, @04:02AM (1 child)
So you're saying the director of FEMA couldn't (or shouldn't) be elected as dog catcher?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @05:48AM
Where's Brownie when you need him - come back all is
forgivenforgottenfor God's sake is this all the people we've got?!(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @06:30AM
1. who is asking you to give guidance to/about FEMA?
2. actually, it was a very smart move. For Paul Wexler. Probably a good insider friend with enough authority in contractual matters; both of them may not finish rich enough to retire, but even some extra money helps nowadays.
No, only tubes from which 2l bottles can be blown. They look like this [google.com]
(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.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @10:11AM
Google/whatever 'benign neglect', 'society of the spectacle'.
Consider the fact that classic 'benign neglect' was fine when you completely controlled the press and media, alas, nowadays you've got to be seen to be doing something as there's always some pesky cunt with a Youtube 'channel', twitter account and a Wordpress site watching these days with their eyes set on having their very own five minutes in the sun, so you now have new 'benign neglect', do the bare minimum to maintain the status quo and/or arrange for anything you're seen to be doing to be a placebo to appease the great unwashed (cf. The 'vaccine', coming real soon now...remind me again, how's the search for the SARS and MERS vaccines been getting along? )..and, of course, even if that gets found out, the song and dance surrounding all this still feeds into the glory that is the spectacle...bread and circuses.
I should have bought shares in popcorn manufacturers...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @06:59AM
"You have the right to remain dead"
Amendment XXX.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @07:37AM
They're supposed to rinse the soda out of the bottle first
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 28 2020, @07:00PM (2 children)
Do the test kits work?
It's not obvious to me that the bottles need to be sterile. Just not contaminated with coronavirus, which could lead to false positives. It's not as if anyone is injecting them.
-- hendrik
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2020, @12:46AM
They could very well be contaminated with Coronavirus from infected workers, or with other things that might screw up the testing (cause false positives and/or false negatives), or that might damage valuable equipment. And that all assumes that these tubes even fit in the testing equipment, which apparently they don't. Quality control is important.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday June 29 2020, @12:47PM
It would cost you more to test them to find out than they are "worth".
Contaminants tend to really mess up any kind of testing, especially if you're testing for things like a certain DNA signature.
There's a reason that labs, tests, solutions, glassware, etc. are all kept sterile - it's not for the fun of it.