Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday dismissed suggestions that there was confusion surrounding President Donald Trump’s address to the nation about coronavirus despite the administration having to later make clarifications about travel restrictions.
“I don’t think there’s confusion,” Pence, who is leading the administration’s response to the crisis, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day” Thursday. But he was unable to provide figures on how many Americans have been tested for the virus, which has been a key question as the crisis has spread throughout the country and disrupted everyday life.
Speaking to the nation Wednesday night, Trump announced that “all travel from Europe to the United States” would be banned for 30 days beginning Friday, with exceptions for the United Kingdom. After Trump’s remarks, the administration clarified that the travel restriction did not apply to Americans or US permanent residents, nor did it apply to all of Europe but to nations in the Schengen zone.
Trump was also forced to clarify he was not blocking goods from Europe, despite saying in his address that his ban would “apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo” across the Atlantic.
On CNN Thursday, Pence elaborated on the travel restrictions, saying that Americans coming home will be funneled through 13 different airports, where they will be screened for the novel coronavirus. Americans and legal residents returning to the US will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days, Pence said.
“We’ve recognized, our health experts tracking global data, that the epicenter of the coronavirus has shifted from China and South Korea to Europe,” the vice president said.
Pence also defended the administration’s handling of testing for the virus. The availability of test kits to health care providers has been one of the most scrutinized aspects of the federal government’s response to the crisis, leading to frustrations from state and local officials, and there has been confusion among Trump administration officials over the number of testing kits that have been mailed out.
Pence said he didn’t believe the numbers of tests being performed were declining, despite what was listed on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website in recent days.
Asked how many tests have been done, Pence replied, “Well, I would leave that to the experts.”
As of Monday, public health labs in all 50 states and Washington, DC, are able to test for novel coronavirus, according to the CDC. But the vice president said Thursday it’s “going to take a few more days” to make commercial testing for COVID-19 widely and readily available for the general public.
“The overall recommendation to Americans is to use common sense, practice good hygiene, and keep a special eye on seniors with chronic underlying health conditions,” Pence said.
Speaking to CNN’s John Berman on “New Day” on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar also was unable to say how many Americans have been tested.
As of Thursday morning, there have been 38 deaths and over 1,200 cases of coronavirus in the United States, according to CNN’s tally.
President Donald Trump referred to the novel coronavirus as a “foreign virus” in his Oval Office address on Wednesday night.
The characterization of the global pandemic as a foreign virus aligns with how some Trump allies have described the coronavirus in recent days, which critics have called xenophobic.
“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” the President said.
“I am confident that by counting and continuing to take these tough measures we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus.”
The rare Oval Office address to the nation by Trump came as his administration has faced harsh criticism for his response to the pandemic. The President said he was “marshaling the full power of the federal government” to confront the growing public health crisis, including a monthlong halt in travel from Europe to the United States.
The address came the same day the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic, with more than 1,200 cases in the US.
The outbreak has not just sparked fear and anxiety in countries like the US and the UK — it has also seen a rise in xenophobic and racist assaults against people of East Asian, and particularly Chinese, descent. And panic over the virus continues to pummel the Chinese business sector in cities like New York, where fear of the disease has driven people away from east Asian neighborhoods.
The President’s reference to the virus as “foreign” echoes a tweet he shared earlier this week promoting a US southern-border wall as a way to protect Americans from the “China Virus.”
Trump, adding his own comment to the tweet, said, “Going up fast. We need the Wall more than ever!” The post was met with fierce pushback from critics, including Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, who tweeted, “A wall won’t stop a virus. Racism won’t stop a virus.
Donald Trump referred to the novel coronavirus as a “foreign virus” in his Oval Office address on Wednesday night, echoing Fox News and Republicans who have sought to frame the Chinese people as “bat eaters” from an “uncivilized world.”
The White House had to issue a correction after Trump was unable to read directly from a teleprompter and announced he is banning goods trade from Europe although he is not banning goods trade from Europe.
“And these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo but various other things as we get approval,” Trump said. “Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing.”
The White House quickly noted that the restrictions were focused on people, not boxes, and Trump later appeared to clarify his remarks in a tweet.
Hoping to get the payroll tax cut approved by both Republicans and Democrats, and please remember, very important for all countries & businesses to know that trade will in no way be affected by the 30-day restriction on travel from Europe. The restriction stops people not goods.
President Donald Trump snapped at CNN reporter Jim Acosta for asking about the White House’s own officials who contradict what the president says about the coronavirus.
“What do you say to Americans who are concerned that you’re not taking this seriously enough and that some of your statements don’t match what your health experts are saying?” asked Acosta.
“That’s CNN. Fake news,” Trump dismissed the question.
Trump was speaking after a meeting with Wall Street bank CEOs, which happened as the Dow Jones hit “bear market” territory at its close Wednesday. He took a few questions from the press during the photo opportunity, and Acosta asked the question. Trump was furious and kicked the press out.
“Tried to ask Trump to respond to Americans who are concerned he’s not taking situation seriously enough and that his statements don’t match what health experts are saying. He did not answer the question,” tweeted Acosta.
Tried to ask Trump to respond to Americans who are concerned he's not taking situation seriously enough and that his statements don't match what health experts are saying. He did not answer the question.
CNN's Jim Acosta: "What do you say to Americans who are concerned that you're not taking this seriously enough and that some of your statements don't match what your health experts are saying?"
The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, an unusual step that has restricted information and hampered the U.S. government’s response to the contagion, according to four Trump administration officials.
The officials said that dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January in a high-security meeting room at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), a key player in the fight against the coronavirus.
Staffers without security clearances, including government experts, were excluded from the interagency meetings, which included video conference calls, the sources said.
“We had some very critical people who did not have security clearances who could not go,” one official said. “These should not be classified meetings. It was unnecessary.”
The sources said the National Security Council (NSC), which advises the president on security issues, ordered the classification.”This came directly from the White House,” one official said.
The White House insistence on secrecy at the nation’s premier public health organization, which has not been previously disclosed, has put a lid on certain information – and potentially delayed the response to the crisis. COVID19, the disease caused by the virus, has killed about 30 people in the United States and infected more than 1,000 people.
HHS oversees a broad range of health agencies, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which among other things is responsible for tracking cases and providing guidance nationally on the outbreaks.
The administration officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said they could not describe the interactions in the meeting room because they were classified.
An NSC spokesman did not respond to questions about the meetings at HHS. But he defended the administration’s transparency across federal agencies and noted that meetings of the administration’s task force on the coronavirus all are unclassified. It was not immediately clear which meetings he was referring to.
“From day one of the response to the coronavirus, NSC has insisted on the principle of radical transparency,” said the spokesman, John Ullyot. He added that the administration “has cut red tape and set the global standard in protecting the American people under President Trump’s leadership.”
A spokeswoman for the HHS, Katherine McKeogh, issued a statement that did not address questions about classified meetings. Using language that echoed the NSC’s, the department said it that it agreed task-force meetings should be unclassified.
Critics have hammered the Trump administration for what they see as a delayed response to coronavirus outbreaks and a lack of transparency, including sidelining experts and providing misleading or incomplete information to the public. State and local officials also have complained of being kept in the dark about essential federal response information.
U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence, the administration’s point person on coronavirus, vowed on March 3 to offer “real-time information in a steady pace and be fully transparent.” The vice president, appointed by President Donald Trump in late February, is holding regular news briefings and also has pledged to rely on expert guidance.
The meetings at HHS were held in a secure area called a “Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility,” or SCIF, according to the administration officials.
SCIFs are usually reserved for intelligence and military operations. Ordinary cell phones and computers can’t be brought into the chambers. HHS has SCIFs because theoretically it would play a major role in biowarfare or chemical attacks.
A high-level former official who helped address public health outbreaks in the George W. Bush administration said “it’s not normal to classify discussions about a response to a public health crisis.”
Attendees at the meetings included HHS Secretary Alex Azar and his chief of staff Brian Harrison, the officials said. Azar and Harrison resisted the classification of the meetings, the sources said.
HHS did not make Azar or Harrison available for comment.
One of the administration officials told Reuters that when complex issues about a quarantine came up, a high-ranking HHS lawyer with expertise on the issue was not admitted because he did not have the proper security clearance. His input was delayed and offered at an unclassified meeting, the official said.
A fifth source familiar with the meetings said HHS staffers often weren’t informed about coronavirus developments because they didn’t have adequate clearance. He said he was told that the matters were classified “because it had to do with China.”
The coronavirus epidemic originated in China and the administration’s main focus to prevent spread early on was to restrict travel by non-U.S. citizens coming from China and to authorize the quarantine of people entering the United States who may have been exposed to the virus.
One of the administration officials suggested the security clearances for meetings at HHS were imposed not to protect national security but to keep the information within a tight circle, to prevent leaks.
“It seemed to be a tool for the White House – for the NSC – to keep participation in these meetings low,” the official said.
President Trump pushed back on a Vanity Fair article Wednesday that reported he is “melting down” over the coronavirus.
The article, published Monday, cites a person close to the administration saying Trump is “definitely melting down over this,” referring to the coronavirus outbreak.
Trump hit back, saying that the magazine “will soon be out of business,” and claiming “their third rate Fake reporters, who make up sources which don’t exist, wrote yet another phony & boring hit piece.”
“The facts are just the opposite,” the president tweeted. “Our team is doing a great job with CoronaVirus!”
Vanity Fair Magazine, which will soon be out of business, and their third rate Fake reporters, who make up sources which don’t exist, wrote yet another phony & boring hit piece. The facts are just the opposite. Our team is doing a great job with CoronaVirus!
The article, written by Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, says the source close to the administration said the president is afraid journalists are trying to get coronavirus to infect him on Air Force One. The president also asked the Secret Service to set up a program and ban anyone who has a cough on the White House grounds, according to the story.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham called the article “100% fake news” on Monday, the day it was published.
“@gabrielsherman did not reach out to me,” she said. “False & sensational writing on this topic is irresponsible. POTUS has spent plenty of time w the press pool – simply ask ur colleagues. Nothing about your little college essay is funny or true & I want a retraction.”
Trump has praised the government’s efforts to contain the virus and send out tests. The president decided against taking a test for the virus after his physician said he didn’t it wasn’t necessary.
“I don’t think it’s a big deal. I would do it. I don’t feel any reason. I feel extremely good. I feel very good, but I guess it’s not a big deal to get tested and it’s something I would do,” Trump told reporters Tuesday.
The payments are hidden from public view because they’re made through campaign manager Paul Parscale’s private company, Parscale Strategy, based in San Antonio, sources told the Times. Typically, such payments would be part of public filings required by the Federal Election Commission so that donors can find out how their contributions are being used — in this case, to pay members of the president’s family.
The family benefits are linked to a network of politically connected private companies — operating with the support and help of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner — that have charged roughly $75 million since 2017 to the Trump reelection campaign, the Republican National Committee and other Republican clients, according to the Times.
Guilfoyle last year angrily confronted Parscale about late checks owed to her, two witnesses told the Times. He reportedly promised that the situation would be rectified by his wife, Candice Parscale, who often handles his company accounts.
One of Lara Trump’s most notorious contributions to her father-in-law’s campaign early this year was to mock rival Joe Biden’s stutter, which he has grappled with since he was a child.
She was initially hired as a senior consultant in early 2017 by another Parscale company, digital vender Giles-Parscale, also based in San Antonio, The Associated Press reported. Lara Trump was to serve as a liaison between the company and Donald Trump’s campaign, headquartered in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, which is owned by the president’s Trump Organization. Parscale was named Trump’s reelection campaign manager the following year.
The Trump campaign announced in January that Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality who stated dating Trump Jr. two years ago, would lead the joint fundraising drive between the campaign and the RNC.
Guilfoyle left Fox News in 2018 following a human resources investigation into allegations of inappropriate behavior, including sexual misconduct, HuffPost reported at the time. An attorney for Guilfoyle denied all accusations as “unequivocally baseless.”
HuffPost could not immediately reach Parscale for comment.
Parscale declined to comment to the Times “in detail” on the article, the paper reported. He has, however, said in the past that private companies provide greater flexibility in a campaign, given campaign finance law requirements, noted the Times.
President Donald Trump bizarrely tweeted on Tuesday that Americans shouldn’t vote Democrat if they like “automobiles.”
“If you like automobils, how can you vote for a Democrat who all want to get rid of cars, as quickly as possible, especially if they are powered by gasoline,” he posted. “Remember also, no more than one car per family. I, on the other hand, have new plants being built all over Michigan, Plus!”
After social media users pointed out that he had spelled “automobiles” incorrectly, the president deleted the tweet and posted another with the error fixed.
If you like automobiles, how can you vote for a Democrat who all want to get rid of cars, as quickly as possible, especially if they are powered by gasoline. Remember also, no more than one car per family. I, on the other hand, have new plants being built all over Michigan, Plus!
For apparently the first time, Twitter Inc. has flagged a post retweeted by President Donald Trump as “manipulated media.”
The tweet came from Dan Scavino, the White House’s social media director, who posted an edited video of former Vice President Joe Biden saying: “We can only re-elect Donald Trump.”
But the actual, unedited quote, which came from a Biden speech in Kansas City, Mo., on Saturday, was: “We can only reelect Donald Trump if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad here.”
As of 8:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, the tweet, which was originally posted by Scavino on Saturday evening, had been viewed 5.2 million times.
On Friday, Twitter TWTR, 3.825% updated its manipulated-media policy. “You may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm,” the company said in a blog post. “In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.”
Last month, Twitter vowed a new effort to crack down on photos, videos and audio that are designed to mislead people. At the time, Twitter said it could remove posts that caused harm, while posts that misled but did not cause harm would just be given a warning label.
However, as of Sunday night, the “manipulated media” tag was only visible to Twitter users on their timelines — searching for the offending tweet brought it up without the warning label. Twitter was reportedly working to fix that glitch.
President Donald Trump visited the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Friday amid his administration’s push to control the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus first observed in China. But in a press conference during that visit, Trump did little to help Americans understand the government’s response to the virus, instead spreading misinformation while using the public health crisis for self-aggrandizement.
The president spent much of the press conference working to convince the public his administration has the coronavirus under control, something that does not appear to be the case.
For instance, while it is unclear how many people have been infected by the virus due to a delay in testing, it has become increasingly clear in recent days that there are Americans infected with the virus across the country. The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the United States has more than doubled in the past week, and as CNN’s Ryan Struyk reported, at least seven states — Minnesota, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Kentucky, Nebraska, Hawaii, and Utah — reported their first Covid-19 cases following Trump’s CDC visit.
Yet during the press conference, Trump dismissed any criticism against the government’s handling of the virus, stressing in particular the availability of Covid-19 tests.
“As of right now and yesterday, anybody that needs a test [can have one], that’s the important thing, and the tests are all perfect, like the letter was perfect, the transcription was perfect,” Trump said, seemingly referring to the White House transcript of his call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in which he requests an investigation into his political rivals.
"The [coronavirus] tests are all perfect. Like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. This was not a perfect as that, but pretty good." — is Trump referring to the transcript of his phone call with the Ukrainian president here? pic.twitter.com/FU5XxPTu7Z
That call was, of course, not perfect, and helped lead to the president’s impeachment — and the tests have not been perfect either.
There have been three main problems with the US government’s coronavirus tests: the first batch, distributed in February, is believed to have had a faulty reagent leading to inconclusive results; once that issue was corrected, there was not enough CDC capacity to test the kits that had been sent out (leading the center to open up testing to state-level facilities), and there aren’t currently enough tests to go around.
Several states have been pushing the CDC for more Covid-19 test kits, and have criticized the government for its slow response in making more tests available. New York, where there are more than 70 confirmed cases, cannot meet the demand for testing because it doesn’t have enough tests, according to Raul Perea-Henze, the New York City deputy mayor for health and human services.
“With multiple positive cases, NYC needs maximum testing capacity to enable successful implementation of the public health strategies that best protect New Yorkers,” Perea-Henze wrote in a letter Friday, requesting more testing kits. “The slow federal action on this matter has impeded our ability to beat back this epidemic.”
California simultaneously does not have enough kits to test all those at risk of having been infected, and does not have the lab capacity to process all of the tests it has already run. Lab technicians have been working 18-hour shifts in order to try to work through a testing backlog, but have been unable to do so. In Los Angeles County, commercial laboratories will begin processing tests on Monday, which is expected to help alleviate this issue.
But not all states have the resources California and New York do — while they were able to send tests to state-run labs after the CDC began allowing them to do so, some states, including Maine, Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, do not currently have the capacity for in-state testing.
The government has tried to respond to mounting criticism about the shortage of testing kits. On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence promised to increase supply, saying 1.5 million tests would be made available. So far, however, the actual number of tests being administered fails to live up to that promise — as of Friday, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said the CDC had distributed enough tests for 75,000 people, and partnered with a private firm to distribute material for 700,000 additional tests.
Trump’s CDC presser confirms everything people were worried about if Covid-19 hit the US
Even before the recent uptick in US-based Covid-19 cases, critics of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response argued the administration was disorganized and ill-equipped to combat Covid-19. As Vox’s Matt Yglesias has written, the president was slow to put someone in charge of the coronavirus response efforts — and when he finally did, he selected Vice President Mike Pence, someone who failed in his responses to public health crises while serving as governor of Indiana, according to experts. And there were also concerns Trump’s efforts to cut CDC funding — and the size of the administration’s initial coronavirus budget — might have limited the government’s ability to fight the virus effectively.
But experts have argued the biggest issue with the administration’s coronavirus response so far is, as former director of the USAID’s Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance Jeremy Konyndyk told Vox’s Alex Ward, Trump has “made it primarily about himself.”
And this concern was on display at the CDC press conference when Trump took time to talk at length about his own intelligence, in part by referencing a “great, super genius” uncle who taught at MIT.
“I like this stuff. I really get it,” Trump said. “People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors say, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should’ve done that instead of running for president.”
Here's Trump rambling at length about how smart he is and how well he understands public health pic.twitter.com/1Co6MaRkzl
Trump’s public response, however, is a reminder of how he has recently put his public health knowledge into question. During a White House meeting on Monday with pharmaceutical executives and public health officials, Trump displayed his ignorance by pushing for a vaccine to be developed in a few months (something he has promised the public will happen) — even though that’s just not how it works.
And he went on to express confusion as to why pharmaceutical companies can’t release the drugs they are currently working on immediately, as Vox’s Aaron Rupar reported:
Trump pressed the pharmaceutical leaders on why they can’t just release the coronavirus drugs their companies are working on tomorrow — in the process revealing that he doesn’t understand the concept of clinical trials.
“So you have a medicine that’s already involved with the coronaviruses, and now you have to see if it’s specifically for this. You can know that tomorrow, can’t you?” he said.
“Now the critical thing is to do clinical trials,” explained Daniel O’Day, CEO of Gilead Sciences, which has two phase-three clinical trials going for remdesivir, a potential treatment for the coronavirus. “We have two clinical trials going on in China that were started several weeks ago … we expect to get that information in April.”
Hours after learning about how vaccines work and the timeline for a potential coronavirus vaccine, Trump told supporters at a rally: “We had a great meeting today with a lot of the great companies, and they’re going to have vaccines I think relatively soon. And they’re going to have something that makes you better, and that’s going to actually take place we think even sooner.”
It isn’t clear why Trump said this, particularly after seemingly having been disabused of his misconceptions in his White House meeting, but such a statement does not support his claim at the CDC that “I understand that whole [scientific] world.”
Nor did the president’s CDC visit allay concerns about a lack of coordination between officials. If anything, it added confusion to an already tumultuous — and potentially dangerous — situation.
For example, the Trump administration has been offering a variety of answers to the question of whether the country is experiencing a shortage of test kits (it is). On Thursday, Pence said, “We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward,” according to The Hill.
Trump, however, had a completely different message as he boasted of the US’s testing capabilities in Atlanta on Friday, saying, “Anybody who needs a test gets a test. … They have the tests and the tests are beautiful.”
This left Pence with the difficult task Friday of attempting to bring his factually correct messaging in line with the president’s incorrect statements.
“I think for any American that’s symptomatic, speaking to your doctor, if you have reason to believe that you have been exposed to the coronavirus, I have every confidence that your physician would contact state health officials and have access to the state lab,” Pence said at a White House briefing. And this, unlike Trump’s statement, is closer to the truth — the CDC revised its testing guidelines on Wednesday, allowing primary physicians to conduct testing in concert with local authorities. Whether local labs have the ability to process those tests, or if those tests are even available, however, remains a matter of concern.
Although we’ve grown used to the Trump administration’s frequent inconsistency in messaging, it becomes dangerous in times like this, when transparent communication is key in helping contain a disease and keep trust in the government strong. And Trump’s tendency to self-aggrandize is not helpful in a moment that calls for collaboration and creating an apolitical environment.
Trump continues to politicize the Covid-19 outbreak
In fact, perhaps the most concerning aspect of the CDC conference was how it gave us a glimpse into Trump’s view of the coronavirus as a political rather than health-based issue.
During his remarks, Trump said he would rather have the passengers of the Grand Princess, a cruise ship docked in San Francisco with 21 confirmed cases onboard, stay on the ship than move to land — all because doing so would raise the number of total Covid-19 cases in the US.
“I would rather because I like the numbers being where they are,” Trump said. “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault. And it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship either, okay? It wasn’t their fault either and they’re mostly Americans. So, I can live either way with it. I’d rather have them stay on, personally.”
"I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship" — Trump explains that he doesn't want to let people off the Grand Princess cruise ship because he doesn't want the number of coronavirus cases in the country to go up pic.twitter.com/ELhZDjiZW9
Trump’s comment suggests a grim reality: that keeping the number of Covid-19 cases low is more important to him than the actual people who have the disease — all because he wants to avoid the political fallout of a growing case count.
And that wasn’t the only political moment during the conference — he also took time out to praise Fox News for its ratings, attack CNN as “fake news,” and smear Washington’s Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee — who was praised by Pence for his work in fighting the spread of Covid-19 — as a “snake” who wants to “take advantage” of the administration’s kindness.
Trump smears Jay Inslee, governor of the state at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak: "I told Mike [Pence] not to be complimentary of the governor, because that governor is a snake." pic.twitter.com/zfraPiqmGI
These sort of attacks undercut the seriousness of the situation — and they also draw attention toward Trump and away from the coronavirus itself. And they come at a time when the virus needs more attention than ever.
Topping a week of conflicting statements from the administration about how many tests the U.S. is now able to administer for the coronavirus, President Donald Trump on Friday told reporters at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta that “anybody who wants a test gets a test.”
U.S. health officials started the week by defending themselves to members of Congress for a shortage of tests across the country. That shortage, along with tight restrictions from the CDC on who could be tested, allowed infected people to go undetected and further spread it, say health experts.
After being rebuked for the delays, Food and Drug Administration chief Stephen Hahn on Tuesday told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions that, with the aid of private sector partnerships, the government would be able to test roughly a million individuals by the end of the week.
But by Thursday, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters he expects public laboratories this week to test 400,000 people. Later that day, Vice President Mike Pence said “we don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward.” Pence is leading the government’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
A spokesperson for the CDC did not respond to requests to confirm the number of people who have been tested for the coronavirus.
Part of the administration’s hope in expediting its testing capability was partnering with the private sector to help make up for limitations created by what experts say is an underfunded public health system.
The CDC is partnering with Integrated DNA Technologies to manufacture the tests under a CDC contract. IDT is partnering with commercial labs, including LabCorp and Quest for the testing, both companies have confirmed.
“What was different was this response,” said John Auerbach, CEO of the Trust for America’s Health and former head of the CDC’s policy office. “The administration said it wasn’t just going to use public health labs as its core — it was going to say to the commercial sector, you develop these, get them out the door. … [But] that assumed they had the capacity to get these kits out the door.”
“But there are no real mechanisms for monitoring how much their capacity is — it’s kind of a wild west.”
LabCorp said Thursday its coronavirus test would be available at 6 p.m. that day. Quest said its test would be available Monday.
Meantime the number of infected people continues to grow. There are at least 245 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Pence said Friday that 21 people on the Grand Princess cruise ship off California have tested positive.
The growing count has led to mounting frustration by many in Congress over what they say are the president’s conflicting statements and a lack of transparency amid a public health crisis.
“They won’t disclose how many test kits are now available or when they will be fully deployed, but we know that they haven’t come close to the one million mark,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., in a statement to CNBC.
“Congress has done its job in providing emergency funding for the Administration to acquire, stockpile, and distribute an adequate supply of diagnostics,” Schakowsky wrote. “The question remains, is this Administration capable of doing so?”
