re: Let's go Brandon!

The company who makes the instrument we do this type of testing on has proprietary rights to the reagents and consumables needed. Again, other labs running the same tests on different instruments are having the same issues. Unprecedented in the 25 plus years I've been doing this.

Soon it won't matter that you can't get reagents, because we are also running out of tubes to collect samples in. No samples no need for reagent.

This should be fun times to be a tech

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Would have been a good stopping point...

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Hard to come up with a plan for something that has never happened before. And there's really no solution when all possible alternatives are having the same issues. or worse.

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65 posts in 16 years?

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How I know you are a gay? By your criticism being too low of a post count on a message board rather than any substantive critique of the actual post.

Supply chain issues have been around for quite some time

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Hard to come up with a plan for something that has never happened before. And there's really no solution when all possible alternatives are having the same issues. or worse.

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Mmhmm. But hey, good luck with your sourcing, sincerely. Sorry Brandon did this to you.

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The company who makes the instrument we do this type of testing on has proprietary rights to the reagents and consumables needed. Again, other labs running the same tests on different instruments are having the same issues. Unprecedented in the 25 plus years I've been doing this.

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How do they do this?

Do they store it in a cartridge like printer ink with a chip so they know if it has been tampered or refilled unauthorized?

I am pretty sure anyone willing could produce alternatives, but if the solutions are locked down with chips then you are fricked.

Jason Sutherland, the national sales and marketing manager of the life science supplier Celtic Molecular Diagnostics in Mowbray, South Africa, writes to The Scientist in an email. “Every plastic consumable that is required to run RT-PCR tests such as plates and pipette tips are being used in abundance and many of the suppliers are battling to keep up with the demand.”

Lab gloves can be particularly hard to come by, adds Sutherland. For more than a year, his company has been unable to procure any from its regular supplier in Germany as the country has stopped exporting them to prioritize domestic needs.

Even when products are available on the global market, the pandemic is stalling their delivery. A general drop in air traffic as well as a global shortage of shipping containers have meant both delays and inflated delivery prices. Staff shortages at ports and a congestion of container ships may have exacerbated the issue in New Zealand

Basant Giri of the Kathmandu Institute of Applied Sciences who specializes in developing low-cost analytical technology, says he worries that this could have long-term effects on lab supplies. During a four-month lockdown that ended in July 2020, air traffic stalled. He’s had to wait months for specific reagents for enzyme assays or standard reference materials for drug and antibiotic testing

Tuberculosis researcher André Loxton of Stellenbosch University and the South Africa Medical Research Council’s Centre for Tuberculosis Research was able to source some items from colleagues. But he’s been waiting weeks for other products

“It would be nice if some of the big biotech and pharma supply companies would start having more backups in terms of warehouses or stockpiles better distributed around the world,” adds Hwa, “so we’re not waiting for every single thing to come all the way from Europe or all the way from China.”

Labs Worldwide Still Struggling Amid Broken Supply Chains - May 21, 2021

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How I know you are a gay? By your criticism being too low of a post count

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Is that really a well known tendency of gay people? That's very helpful!