Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan threw cold water on President Trump’s suggestion that coronavirus testing is no longer an issue facing the medical community.
Hogan’s remarks came after the president claimed in a phone call with governors that he hadn’t “heard about testing in weeks,” insinuating that the initial problems with coronavirus testing availability were no longer persisting. Trump also said during Monday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing that the United States was testing for the virus more “than any country in the world.”
The Maryland governor questioned the validity of the president’s comments in a Tuesday morning interview on NPR’s Morning Edition.
“Yeah, that’s just not true. I mean, I know that they’ve taken some steps to create new tests, but they’re not actually produced and distributed out to the states,” Hogan stated. “No state has enough testing.”
Hogan, who issued a stay-at-home order for his state on Monday, in a subsequent appearance on CNN’s New Day said that states are “flying blind” with estimates related to the virus because they don’t have the amount of tests necessary.
JUST NOW: “Without the tests we really are flying blind, we’re sort of guessing about where the outbreaks are and about what the infection rate in the hospitalization rates are.”
MD Gov @LarryHogan on continued plea from state for more tests.@NewDay pic.twitter.com/hOKTHEzPsf
— John Berman (@JohnBerman) March 31, 2020
“Without the tests, we really are flying blind. We’re sort of guessing about where the outbreaks are and about what the infection rate and the hospitalization rates are,” he explained.
