The Trump administration says there is sufficient coronavirus testing to initiate reopening plans. But many local officials and health care providers say testing — and needed supplies — are still far short of where they need to be.
Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience in Philadelphia, pictured in 2009, is one of several hospitals operated by Jefferson Health. The president, Bruce Meyer, says the health system doesn't have the supplies it needs to do more coronavirus testing.Scott Lewis/Bloomberg via Getty Images
"We're short [of] testing in the way we would like to carry out testing," says Dr. Bruce Meyer, the president of Jefferson Health, which runs 14 hospitals in the Philadelphia area.Morning EditionObtaining the reagents — the chemicals that are needed to do a test — is"a larger challenge for us," Meyer says,"because they've been very highly regulated by the government.
Meyer tells NPR his hospitals are prioritizing testing people with"significant symptomatology as well as our own health care workforce. And that's not just what we would think of as frontline staff like nurses and nurses' aides, but also the environmental services workers who have to clean rooms and things like that and the rest of our staff in the hospital."
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