Talk to people in Israel, the U.K. or elsewhere in Europe, and you’ll find many places practically giving away strip tests—often subsidized by the government as part of its broader public health efforts. (As Bourne calculates in his book, the budgetary cost is low compared to the economic benefit.)

Here, not so much. And the United States’ clear lack of “testing abundance” may now be moving from regulatory embarrassment to real problem. In particular, the combination of the Delta variant’s heightened transmissibility, the start of the school year, and many workplaces ending full‐​time remote work has spiked interest in and demand for rapid tests that people—vaccinated or not—can use to check themselves and their kids to meet private or public protocols like the ones at my daughter’s school…

And that demand may be outstripping the supply of approved rapid tests. Last week, for example, CVS began to limit in‐​store purchases, and the Journal reported that approved suppliers and are struggling to keep up…

Shortly thereafter, both Amazon and Walmart (online) went from low inventory to out of stock entirely, though they have since replenished their supplies and offer delivery in a few days. (Not exactly a “rapid” test, but better than nothing.) Many other online retailers are in a similar boat. And there various anecdotal reports of local drugstore shelves being bare: