Federal government to decide if 1 million expired Florida COVID-19 test kits are salvageable

TAMPA, Fla. - Governor Ron DeSantis defended his administration's handling of up to 1 million COVID-19 test kits that expired in a state-run warehouse.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management recently acknowledge that between 800,000 and 1 million had an original expiration date in September, but the FDA said the kits could still be used through December. 

In December, the state asked the FDA to further extend the expiration date, but at the end of the first week of January, the DeSantis said the state still hadn't heard.

The governor said the stockpile of kits sat in storage because demand for testing waned during the fall, as COVID cases subsided. The federal government said it is still trying to determine whether the kits can be salvaged and distributed.

RELATED: Experts express concern over Florida surgeon general's approach to COVID-19 testing

"Having a stockpile was the right thing to do. If we had done the opposite, we would have run out," DeSantis said during a Friday news conference. "No one really wanted them for many, many months. As the expiration date was coming, they had already gotten one extension, they had asked, can you do more, can you do more? So hopefully they'll answer that... At the same time, if they're not accurate, we don't want to be giving anyone a false sense."

It was reported Thursday that the expired test kits were being sent to nursing homes as part of a government plan to get more tests to at-risk populations. 

DeSantis corrected the record Friday, saying that the 1 million testing kits are being sent to long-term care facilities and nursing homes were not the ones that had expired.

Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried, a Democrat who's running for governor against DeSantis, initially exposed the issue last week. She told FOX 13 Friday the tests could have really helped during the current COVID surge, which has seen long lines at testing sites across the state.

"Absolutely outraged by the fact of complete dereliction of his responsibility," Fried said. "There should have been some proactive approach at some point to have either already asked for the waiver or to have done some type of swapping out with other facilities that may have had tests that were going to expire at a later point of time."

The governor announced Friday that the state is receiving 15,000 doses of Regeneron's monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID, but he wanted more.

"I had asked for 30, so that's still not what we want," he said.

RELATED: Cases of so-called 'flurona' doctors see increase as dual infection, especially in kids

Experts have said the Regeneron treatments are not effective against the omicron variant. While they do still work against other variants, roughly 95 percent of cases nationally are due to the omicron.

COVID UPDATES: Download the free FOX 13 News app for ongoing coronavirus coverage and live updates