Pressed on Surging Covid-19 Cases and Test Shortages, Trump Says U.S. Is ‘Envy of the World’

“They’re supposed to have supplies … I supplied everybody,” the president said. “Now we have somewhat of a surge in certain areas. In other areas we’re doing great. But we have a surge in certain areas. But you don’t hear people complaining about ventilators, we’ve got all the ventilators we could use, we’re supplying them to other countries.”

“We have more tests by far than any country in the world,” Trump said. When Wallace pointed out that the Covid-19 positivity rate is rising sharply even as more tests are conducted, Trump said dismissively: “Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day. They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test.”

“Cases are up because we have the best testing in the world,” Trump said, once again falsely blaming the increase in testing for the growing number of positive coronavirus cases in the U.S., which now leads the world in confirmed infections. “No country has ever done what we’ve done in terms of testing. We are the envy of the world.”

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As the Associated Press reported Saturday, Trump’s portrayal of the U.S. coronavirus testing system as the “best in the world” is undermined by the realities numerous states are facing as Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations spike:

Here are some snapshots from what President Donald Trump describes as the nation with the “best testing in the world” for the coronavirus:
In Sun Belt states where the virus is surging, lines of cars with people seeking tests snake for hours in the beating sun, often yielding results so far after the fact that they’re useless.
In Pittsburgh, adults who are afraid they’ve been exposed to the coronavirus are being asked to skip testing if they can quarantine at home for 14 days to help reduce delays and backlogs.
In Hawaii, the governor will wait another month to lift a two-week quarantine on visitors because of test supply shortages and delays that potential visitors are facing in getting results.

Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, told AP that “it’s essentially worthless to have a test result that comes back after 48 hours.”

“We are nowhere near being able to rein in this virus with the amount of testing we have available at the moment,” said Wen. “Testing is the linchpin.”

Blair Holladay, CEO of the American Society for Clinical Pathology, told USA Today on Saturday that because the Trump administration has failed to implement a national testing strategy, “states are duking it out for supply chains.”

“It’s the Wild, Wild West,” said Holladay.

In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said “the national testing scene is a complete disgrace.”

“Every test we send out to private lab partners nationally, Quest, Labcorp, seven days, eight days, nine days — maybe six days if we’re lucky,” Polis said of the amount of time it typically takes to get test results back. “Almost useless from an epidemiological or even diagnostic perspective.”

“Fortunately, our state lab has done yeoman’s work,” Polis continued. “We’re running three shifts a day there, 24 hours a day. So while some are still sent out of state, and unfortunately that takes a long time and we can’t count on it and our country needs to get testing right, we’re trying to build that capacity in Colorado.”