Masks are the New Litmus Test

Do you/we pass or fail?

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

Two things struck me as I read an article about the cost of COVID testing. The article describes two friends taking a virus test at the same location and at the same time and getting charged two dramatically different prices, $199 and $6,408.

1. Somebody is making a lot of money, a whole lot of money.
2. One’s position on compulsory mask-wearing is the new litmus test of the day. One is either for or against. There is no middle ground. No compromise. Literally it is a life or death decision, for some. There is no gray line, it’s a big fat thick line one cannot cross, either way.

As of 30 June, per the COVID tracker, the US has conducted 31,557,407 tests. From the article referenced above, assuming all tests were paid for using just the low rate of $199 cash (using no insurance), this equates to:

31,557,407 x $199 = $6,279,923,993

THAT is $6 Billion, just for the test!

Let us say for argument sake a more realistic estimate would be a mix of testing costs.

70% at the low “cash” cost of $199, or $4,395,946,795; 20% at a negotiated rate of $1,128, or $7,119,351,019; lastly 10% at the high (full insurance rate) of $6,408, or $20,221,986,405.