Battle Creek Times

Rep. Matt Hall (R-Marshall) spoke during a recent Joint Select Committee hearing, urging the test swab production for COVID-19 to be approved so that there would no longer be a shortage of the swabs, according to Michigan House Republicans website.

"I've heard press conferences every week from Gov. (Gretchen) Whitmer where she said that we can't get test swabs," Hall said during the hearing. "I heard last week, testimony from one of the directors of procurement that there's a shortage of test swabs, but yet we could get tens of thousands of test swabs here tomorrow, right here in Michigan, being manufactured here in Michigan."

Dearborn manufacturer Al Siblani and his company, EnvisionTEC, have made repeated efforts to provide the state with 3D-printed nasal swabs, but Michigan House Republicans say the manufacturer has never been given an answer.

Rep. Matt Hall | Michigan House Republicans

"We have test swabs right here in Michigan," Hall said, according to Michigan House Republicans. "We can get tens of thousands of them tomorrow, but yet government bureaucrats in the Department of Health and Human Services are still testing them, right? And meanwhile, they've been deployed throughout hospitals and local governments in Michigan and other states like Minnesota and Texas."

Hall urged the MDHHS to approve the swabs to be manufactured in Michigan.

"What we heard is that they're buying these from Italy, right?" Hall told the committee. "They're looking all over the place for these things. Well, they're right here in Dearborn, Michigan. And we could have had them 12 weeks ago, and he said we could have tens of thousands of these tomorrow. It's time for DHHS to approve these swabs."

Back in April, it was reported by Fox 2 Detroit that Siblani said the company was able to produce about a million swabs per day. Siblani told the news media they have had multiple other states reach out to get swabs, but Michigan has yet to use them.