In its fight to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the government must recognize that, as our nation’s top infectious disease expert admitted recently, the U.S. testing system is “failing.”

To fix it, the government must take immediate action that includes developing and broadly distributing “direct access” test kits so that people can test early and often. Direct access test kits enable people to collect a specimen at home and send it to a lab for testing. Results and medical guidance are available by phone.