The CDC wasn’t a manufacturer. In an ideal system, the CDC would have contracted with commercial manufacturers from the outset and wouldn’t have tried to make test kits on its own, even for the public health labs. The CDC eventually reached out to contract manufacturers around February 10, but agreements to enlist the help of commercial companies to make the testing components weren’t completed for about ten days, due to complex issues that would arise in the contracting process. Among other contracting matters, the CDC was trying to assure protection of the agency’s intellectual property
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