Today, President Trump tweeted an egregious lie about his administration’s coronavirus testing capacity, claiming – without evidence – that America has done “more testing than any other nation, by far.”
Not only is the United States lagging significantly behind other nations including South Korea when it comes to testing, but making such a claim only puts a harsher spotlight on his administration’s systematic failure to produce sufficient tests at a time when they’re needed most.
Coronavirus War Room Director Zac Petkanas issued the following statement in response:
“Once again Donald Trump is downplaying the crisis instead of giving accurate information to the American public. It’s a clear strategy to mask his administration’s inexcusable failure to produce more coronavirus tests at a time when other nations like South Korea have made it a priority. Not only is his claim that America has done more testing than ‘any other nation’ a bald-faced lie, it undermines the efforts of hospitals and elected officials who continue to plead to the federal government to produce more tests and whose calls have so far gone largely unanswered. President Trump simply cannot come to terms with the reality of his disastrous coronavirus response.”
BACKGROUND:
As Of 11:30 AM on March 25, 2020:
South Korea, A Country Of 51.26 Million People, Has Conducted 357,896 Coronavirus Tests While The United States, A Country Of 330.5 Million People, Has Conducted 353,120 Tests. According to South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare, South Korea has conducted 357,896 tests for COVID-19. Though the United States government does not release comprehensive data on the country’s tests, the COVID Tracking Project, which collects information directly from state health departments and live news conferences, reports that the United States has conducted 353,120 tests.
South Korea Has Conducted Coronavirus Tests On Roughly 1-In-143 People While The United States Has Tested Roughly 1-In-935 People. Based on Worldometer population estimates for both the United States and South Korea and publicly available testing numbers, South Korea has tested roughly 0.698% of its population for the novel coronavirus while the United States has tested 0.1068% of its population. South Korea has tested roughly 1-in-143 people for coronavirus while the United States has tested roughly 1-in-935.
Trump Did NOT Produce Enough Tests And Did NOT Test Enough People
Fact #1: The Trump administration decided early on not to use tests adopted by the World Health Organization.
- “As they have done with some past outbreaks, officials at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta decided to develop their own test, focusing on three gene targets distinct from what the WHO used. Over the decades, the headquarters lab had built a track record of being among the first to develop tests for new diseases and quickly making them available for disease tracking. The CDC published the technical details for its COVID-19 test on Jan. 28, 10 days after the WHO. By then, the virus had already been in the U.S. for at least two weeks.” [Associated Press, 3/24/20]
- “By the end of February, the World Health Organization had shipped tests to nearly 60 countries. The United States was not among them. Why the United States declined to use the WHO test, even temporarily as a bridge until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could produce its own test, remains a perplexing question and the key to the Trump administration’s failure to provide enough tests to identify the coronavirus infections before they could be passed on, according to POLITICO interviews with dozens of viral-disease experts, former officials and some officials within the administration’s health agencies.” [Politico, 3/6/20]
Fact #2: As it became clear that the CDC’s tests may have been flawed, Trump’s CDC continued to insist that it had developed “a very accurate test.”
- “As the first tests were processed at the state labs, technicians reported getting inconclusive results, which the CDC has said could be due to the test looking for signs of generic coronaviruses, of which there are many, rather than the specific virus that causes COVID-19. Whatever the reason, by mid-February, only about a half-dozen state and local public health labs had reliable tests. But still, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield continued to insist his agency had developed ‘a very accurate test.’” [Associated Press, 3/24/20]
Fact #3: Trump’s FDA did not relax its testing rules until February 29, 2020. This left independently developed coronavirus tests, Including one developed by the University of Washington, on hold for as many as 11 days.
- “On Feb. 24, exasperated officials at the Association of Public Health Laboratories sent a letter to the FDA, basically asking permission for state labs to develop their own tests. Within days, the FDA reversed its previous position and said both public and private labs could conduct testing. Trump continued to insist the virus would die out on its own. ‘One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear,’ he predicted Feb. 27. By then, experts say, the opportunity to halt the relentless spread of the virus within the U.S. population had been lost.” [Associated Press, 3/24/20]
- “‘It took [the CDC] awhile to come up with the test, honestly,’ said Alex Greninger of the University of Washington. His lab had developed its own test and began seeking approval to use it on patients on Feb. 18. But that test, along with others that had been developed in various academic centers and hospitals, could not be used on patients until the FDA relaxed its testing rules on Feb 29.” [Washington Post, 3/16/20]
- “First, the CDC moved too slowly to tap into the expertise of academia and private companies such as Landt’s, experts said. For example, it wasn’t until last week that large companies such as Roche and Thermo Fisher won approval from the Food and Drug Administration to produce their own tests.” [Washington Post, 3/16/20]
Fact #4: On March 6, Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar promised 4 million test kits would be available by the end of the following week — seven days later CDC and state health labs only had 25,200 tests.
- “As public outrage over the lack of available U.S. tests grew, the FDA announced it would allow private diagnostic lab companies to produce new tests without preauthorization from regulators. Trump and HHS Secretary Alex Azar visited the CDC lab in Atlanta on March 6, praising the agency’s performance and promising 4 million test kits would be available by the end of the following week. That lofty number didn’t match the ability of U.S. labs to process tests, however. Private providers were just then ramping up, while CDC and state health labs processed about 25,200 COVID-19 tests in the following seven days, according to CDC data.” [Associated Press, 3/24/20]