Coronavirus: testing in US accelerates as companies step in where government failed
- Washington finally cuts red tape, increases reliance on private labs and improves coordination between regulators, doctors and hospitals
- The new sense of urgency follows weeks of denials by President Donald Trump that the virus was a significant threat
After weeks of misleading claims, much of them generated by President Donald Trump, the US appears to be grinding into gear on coronavirus testing in part by allowing companies to step in where the government has fallen short.
At a press briefing in the White House on Tuesday, assistant health secretary Brett Giroir said government diagnostic laboratories carried out 31,878 tests and private labs another 27,000 or so.
While the numbers are still woefully short for a country of 327 million people and a virus spreading exponentially, momentum is picking up. Some 8,000 of those tests involving commercial labs were recorded in the previous 24 hours, Giroir said.
In an echo of the politics that has defined the crisis for weeks, however, Giroir praised the Trump administration in spite of its early crisis management shortcomings, claiming that laboratories were “blossoming”, before adding: “This is going on the way we expected.”
The totals are in sharp contrast to the much larger number of tests that other nations had carried out at a similar stage in their battle with the virus. The Trump administration has also been criticised for opting not to use a World Health Organisation test available in late February, squandering valuable weeks, and for possible lab contamination and logistical delays.