Devices

Coronavirus Test Goal Won’t be Met: Pence

[Report by David McFarland] The Trump Administration continues to lose credibility with its handling of the coronavirus outbreak. After promising to deliver up to 1.5 million tests for coronavirus by the end of the week, vice president Mike Pence now says that goal won't be met and not enough tests will be available to meet current demand for the foreseeable future.

Pence, FDA commissioner Steven Hahn and CDC officials were all onboard this week with their projections about a substantially huge increase in testing capacity despite earlier troubles getting testing up and running (see earlier story). On Thursday, Pence acknowledged failure to meet the timeline as he was visiting a 3M Company plant in Minnesota and several hours after senators were briefed by health officials about missing the testing goal.

Pence, who is leading President Trump’s coronavirus taskforce, said some progress had been made on manufacturing more test kits. “For those who we believe have been exposed, for those who are showing symptoms, we’ve been able to provide the testing,” he said. “But as more Americans take an interest in this or have concerns about this, we want to make sure they have access to a coronavirus test as well, and we’ve made real progress on that in the last several days.”

“There won’t be a million people to get a test by the end of the week,” senator Rick Scott (R-FL) was quoted in a Bloomberg report. “It’s way smaller than that. And still, at this point, it’s still through public-health departments.” Scott and other lawmakers said the government is “in the process” of sending test kits out and people still need to be trained on how to use them. The entire process could take days or weeks, they said.

“By the end of the week they’re getting them out to the mail,” senator James Lankford (R-OK) said. “It’s going to take time to be able to get them, receive them, re-verify them and then be able to put them into use.”

To date, 11 Americans have died after contracting coronavirus (10 in Washington and one in California). There are currently more than 150 confirmed cases in the U.S.

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Gupta Raises Concerns About Overton’s Independence, Ideology

Overton Confirmation Remains Uncertain After Senate Hearing

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