Top federal health officials on Saturday said they don't know how many people in the U.S. have been tested for coronavirus — or how many will need to be in the coming weeks
Top federal health officials on Saturday said they don't know how many people in the U.S. have been tested for coronavirus — or how many will need to be in the coming weeks.
The health officials, in an untelevised briefing at the White House, also defended President Donald Trump's claim on Friday that anyone seeking a test can get one, even as state officials voice frustration with the availability of tests.Federal government labs have tested specimens for 1,583 people, but the Trump administration does not have
figures for the numbers of people tested at state and local labs, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn told reporters. They said said that 5,861 specimens have been tested across the country, but it's not clear how many people that translates to because each test requires multiple specimens and people get multiple tests.
The administration has previously struggled to communicate how many tests have been conducted. Azar last Sunday said more than 3,600 people had been tested, but two days later Anne Schuchat, a top CDC official, testified in the Senate that more than 3,000 specimens had been taken from 500 people —By Friday night, 1.1 million tests had been shipped out, Hahn said. That was just shy of the 1.5 million that Vice President Mike Pence had said would be available to hospitals this week.
But frustration is growing among state health officials who say they do not have the tests needed as cases rack up in California, New York and Washington state. Meanwhile some people have taken to Twitter and Reddit to say they were turned away from testing because they did not have a clear link to someone already infected.States Affected:
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