comment murren said state health officials ultimately decided they wanted to build their own highcapacity labthe university medical center used 20000 specimen collection kits offered by g42 which are comprised of nasal swabs and tubes to store samples spokesman scott kerbs said umc did not use the donated 250000 analysis kits because they were not compliant with umcs laboratory technology he saidkerbs said the collection kits helped us to support local testing at a time when specimen collection materials were scarce in our community he did not respond to questions from ap about the warnings umc always appreciates the generosity of donors he saidsince then the casinos along with much of nevadas shuttered economy have reopened coronavirus testing now is widely available nevada has now performed more than 11 million tests for covid19 and has reported more than 85000 cases and 1600 deathsnotably even as us authorities warned nevada they did not alert the 75000 americans living in the united arab emirates about any concerns over the bgi tests used by the emirati firm even though the same tests are used widely in the country the uae insists all genetic data is kept private and is not shared with bgithe state department told the ap that it shares information to americans abroad regarding safety and security threats that might affect them in this case the department did not deem the use of bgi covid19 tests to be a threat to safetythe push to convince nevada not to use the bgi tests comes amid the increasingly antagonistic relationship between the us and china under the trump administration that has witnessed an ongoing trade war and the expulsions of diplomats and journalistsus intelligence agencies worry chinas genetic research could provide it a way to spy on or leverage american sourcesin may the us national counterintelligence and security center issued a warning to state health officials about potential threats posed by foreign powers in connection with covid tests it did not specify bgi though it did link to a news report on israels largest health care plan declining to work with bgiin june the washington post reported that californias health department decided to steer clear of offers by bgi and g42 to provide testing and test lab facilities the report said the decision was taken on the advice of the states coronavirus test task force advisers in part because of concerns over china gaining access to private patient informationthe us embassy in abu dhabi quietly declined an offer by the emirati government to conduct free coronavirus testing of its diplomats because of concerns about chinese involvement it did not publicize that decision the uae also is home to some 5000 american troops and dubais jebel ali port the us navys busiest port of call outside of the usefforts by the united arab emirates a hereditarily ruled country where political parties and unions remain illegal to fight the pandemic have renewed concerns about its mass surveillance programsofficials at g42 have refused