The Biden Administration has awarded a contract for $6.5 million to U.S. Cotton LLC, the largest manufacturer of cotton swabs in the United States, to increase domestic production capability for polyester tipped swabs for home testing kits and mass testing applications to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, U.S. Cotton has retooled operations to produce over 400 million COVID testing kit swabs.
The Department of Defense (DOD), in coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced the award today as part of the administration’s broader effort to increase domestic production capability for essential medical supplies. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. Cotton said the company would increase its production capacity from 92 million polyester swab tips per month to approximately 371 million polyester swab tips per month by May 2022 to support domestic COVID-19 testing. The DOD contract award was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to support the domestic industry base expansion for critical medical resources.
John Nims, President of U.S. Cotton, said, “We are proud to be involved in a national effort to help deploy these testing kit swabs for the American people. These swabs are designed to make it easier for people at home to self-administer coronavirus tests and be used for mass testing applications, which is critically important. We greatly appreciate the collaboration with DOD and HHS to ramp up the vital capacity of polyester-based synthetic swabs to help fight against the pandemic.
