The swabs may in fact be made of the proper material, but packaged in available material causing confusion. Also, the swabs are bulk packaged, leading to additional use instructions having to be sent out by CDC to avoid contamination. Also, they are regular Q-tip length, which will make them difficult to use to gather samples for testing

Shipment of Swabs for COVID-19 Testing Appears to Show Another Mix-Up from Federal Government https://t.co/w0vBziZq0s

— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) May 14, 2020