Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that states have enough test for the coronavirus to reopen their economies, pushing back against criticisms that the administration has failed to sufficiently ramp up testing.
“Our best scientists and health experts assess that today we have a sufficient amount of testing to meet the requirements of a phase one reopening if state governors should choose to do that,” Pence said during Friday’s White House press briefing.
The Trump administration has been criticized for making too few diagnostic tests available to the public and is working to bring more online. Ohio-based manufacturer Abbott released a test that produces results in 15 minutes. The Food and Drug Administration has also approved three antibody tests that can detect if a person has ever had the coronavirus and is now immune to it.
Still, only about 3.5 million people in the United States have been tested for the coronavirus, about 1% of the population, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Members of Congress, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, are seeking to add $30 billion in funding for testing in the next economic relief bill.
“President Trump needs to get testing under control NOW,” Schumer said Friday.
Pence said that the federal government will work with states to boost testing capabilities, pledging that the administration will “work every single day to make sure that states and communities have the testing they need to reopen at the time and manner of their choosing.”
Top government infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci added that states are equipped to carry out requisite testing to begin slowly reopening their states.
“If these things are done correctly… we will have and there will be enough tests to allow us to take this country safely through phase one,” Fauci said.
Fauci said that testing is only part of mitigating further spread of the virus.
Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that the government will also monitor potential outbreaks through monitoring the emergency of COVID-19 symptoms at emergency rooms and that the agency has personnel throughout the country.
Admiral Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services and the top adviser on testing, said that it would simply not be possible to test everyone in the country, “but it’s also a bad strategy.”
To execute the administration’s strategy, he said, the country would need about 4.5 million tests performed a month. Already, more than a million are tested a week, he said.
