“This disappointing report confirms that President Trump’s national testing strategy is to deny the truth that there aren’t enough tests and supplies, reject responsibility and dump the burden onto the states,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats said in a joint statement. “The Trump Administration again attempts to paint a rosy picture about testing while experts continue to warn the country is far short of what we need.”
The U.S. has exceeded 400,000 tests per day since May 28, and has performed more than 18 million overall, according to the Covid Tracking Project, which compiles data from states. Public health experts say a long delay in ramping up testing -- the U.S. didn’t exceed 100,000 total tests until March 19 -- contributed to the country experiencing the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.
Jha said the U.S. is on pace to suffer at least 300,000 deaths from Covid-19 by next spring, calling it an “awful” toll.
“I can’t believe that we as Americans are OK with that,” he said. “And we can’t have the White House task force not exist, we can’t have it not be engaged. I think there’s a lot of good they have done; obviously, I wish they had done more.”
--With assistance from Vincent Del Giudice and Shira Stein.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.