Apr 5, 2021 11:43am Backed by BARDA and the Department of Defense, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics is planning to provide up to 6.7 million COVID tests per month by April 2022. (Getty Images)(Circle Creative Studio/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images) Vaccination rates may be steadily climbing across the country, but companies hope COVID-19 testing won't slow down any time soon. In fact, manufacturers are now ramping up production of antigen and antibody tests, with Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, for one, expecting to triple its output within the next year. Ortho’s increased production will be backed by a new contract with the U.S. government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as BARDA, and a COVID-19 acquisition task force set up by the Air Force.