Defense Department continues boosting coronavirus testing capacity amid CARES spending investigation

Under scrutiny by its own internal watchdog for possibly misspending coronavirus relief money, the Pentagon announced this week a plan to buy $481 million worth of COVID-19 tests.

“This industrial base expansion effort will allow Cue Health to increase production to 100,000 COVID-19 test kits per day by March 2021,” read a Tuesday Department of Defense press release.

The buy will result in the U.S. government acquiring 6 million point-of-care coronavirus tests from the San Diego-based company. The molecular test uses a nasal swab to detect the virus in just...