US coronavirus testing kicks into high gear as state governors cite continued problems

Authorities have done 103,000 coronavirus tests as of Thursday, from 59,000 two days earlier, Trump official says

State governors report shortages of swabs and other equipment needed to carry out tests

Reading Time:4 minutes

People queue to enter a tent erected to test for the coronavirus at New York’s Brooklyn Hospital Centre. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:59am, 20 Mar 2020Updated: 12:50pm, 20 Mar 2020

The Trump administration’s top official in charge of coronavirus testing said on Thursday the US had “effectively transitioned” to large-scale testing with more than 10 million diagnostic kits now in stock and drive-through testing available in a dozen states, setting authorities up to expand rapidly in the coming days.

The remarks, by US “testing tsar” Brett Giroir in a teleconference with state governors, suggest progress after last week’s scramble by the administration to fix shortages and defects in its testing regime – and that American authorities may soon have the broad surveillance capacity used by South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong to contain the outbreak.

“We're very effectively transitioning to large-scale testing by leveraging all the components in the American health care system, including CDC and the state public health labs, health care and hospitals, and large commercial labs,” Giroir said, adding that some 103,000 tests had been conducted as of Thursday.

About 45,000 of them were done in government labs, including in US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) facilities, and 63,000 carried out by private labs. The figures are markedly higher than Tuesday’s total of 58,878.

US “testing tsar” Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health, at a teleconference with state governors on Thursday. Photo: EPA-EFE

The US supply of test kits is also on the rise, thanks to the involvement of private labs and the lifting of bureaucratic red tape, said Giroir, an assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services.