General Discussion

iluvtennis

(19,864 posts) Wed Mar 25, 2020, 03:32 PM Mar 2020

Coronavirus, 500,000 swabs sold by company in Brescia, Italy to private US company

Last edited Wed Mar 25, 2020, 04:10 PM - Edit history (4)

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2020/03/19/news/coronavirus_tamponi_da_brescia_a_stat
i_uniti-251735473/?refresh_ce
(note: this is Goolge Translation as article was in Italian)

Coronavirus, half a million swabs from a company in Brescia,Italy to the United States
19 March 2020, by GIANLUCA DI FEO

Products in the outbreak area of the epidemic in Italy would have sufficed for the needs of the whole North. The diagnostic kits were instead sold to the US and transferred by military aircraft.
The company[Copan]: everything is regular, there is no shortage.
Did anyone in our country know this?

The whole world says it's a war. And for the first time in history it seems to be everyone against everyone, without any alliances. Each nation thinks for itself, using every means to guarantee the winning weapons against the virus: swabs, masks, respirators. So the United States managed to buy half a million kits to detect the infection from Brescia. And they moved them to Memphis in a military plane.

America celebrated on Wednesday for the arrival of a load of swabss, just half a million pieces. An impressive supply: in our country since the beginning of the epidemic, just over 100 thousand have been made. But that supply landed in the USA came from the American base in Aviano, not far from Pordenone. Yes, in Italy there was a colossal reserve of diagnostic tests, available a few tens of kilometers from the epicenter of Covid-19: tools that our regions look for in all ways to stem the spread of the disease but that they cannot find .

The announcement of the transatlantic expedition was made on Instagram, together with the photo of the hold of an Air Force C-17 Globemaster quadrireactor full of containers with kits. Then the post was removed. But the news found official confirmation in the words of the Pentagon spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman. "There are multiple elements to take the test - explained General Paul Friedrichs, of the central medical command - The first are the swabs that are used to collect the samples from people, then there is the liquid where to develop them. This is what we have brought from Italy. " The general said that the materials are produced in the US and abroad, without specifying where they were found. And he added: "This is a great example of how nations work together to ensure that global questions are answered."

And half a million tests have been produced in Italy. From a company in Brescia, the city that in these hours is at the forefront of the battle against the disease: Copan Diagnostics. Ambassador Lewis Einsenberg confirms this in the Republic: "We are delighted that the Italian company Copan Diagnostics continues to produce swabs for the Covid-19 tests in sufficient quantities to satisfy requests in Italy and sales abroad. The private sector Italian contributes to saving lives in the world. I congratulate you on this effort. " And he specifies: "The United States will continue to purchase these swabs from Italian companies according to its needs. The United States and Italy continue to work together in close collaboration."

The news appears surprising. A Lombard company had enough swabs available for the needs of the whole North and instead it was sold across the ocean. Did they beat us on the price? There is a wealth of information circulating about the US government's efforts to stock up against Covid-19. The White House, for example, would have offered very high sums to obtain the exclusive vaccine tested by the German CureVac laboratories: an operation blocked by the Berlin intervention followed by that of the European Union which has allocated 80 million to prevent the patent leak. In these hours, there are world auctions to buy even rising stock of masks and respirators at increasing prices: an economic challenge, in which the strongest wins. Like in war. But without any alliances they hold.

...continued at this link - https://www.scribd.com/document/453234278/Coronavirus-half-a-million-swabs-from-in-Brescia-Itlay-to-the-United-States

----
The Italian people believe their people in the Lombardy region (where Covid-19 hit the hardest) were deprieved of being tested because Copan sold the swabs to the US. The Italain people also believe the sale of the swabs was done secretly and the ppl not made aware. Of course, the CEO of Copan denies that Italians and other Europeans were shortchanged on swabs. For parity, you can find the google translated version of the CEO's reply to the Repubblica article here - https://www.scribd.com/document/453241222/Copan-Rebuttal-to-Repubblica-Article

----
note: This is a follow-up to a post that I made to this thread - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142455969.