The CDC revealed on Tuesday that 8,554 Americans have been tested for coronavirus, but the agency’s director says state and local health labs are understaffed and ill-equipped to keep up with crisis.
According to figures published on the CDC’s website on Tuesday, 3,698 tests had been done in its lab, and another 4,856 had been done in public health labs.
So far, 795 cases of the virus have been confirmed in the US and 28 people have died.
It is unclear how many of the 8,554 tests that have been carried out have been completed to the point that there is a result, or if patients are still waiting for a result.
On Tuesday, the agency’s director, Robert R. Redfield testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budget on Capitol Hill.
‘The truth is we’ve not invested, we’ve under-invested in the public health labs.
CDC Director Robert R. Redfield testified on Tuesday that state labs were understaffed and ill-equipped to handle the outbreak
There are 795 cases of coronavirus in the US including 28 deaths
‘There’s not enough equipment, there’s not enough people, there’s not enough internal capacity, there’s no surge capacity.
He said, when asked how many Americans had been tested, that 4,856 had been tested by public health labs but that the number did not include ‘clinical’ or ‘private’ labs.
Lab Corp and Quest Diagnostics both announced last week that they had developed a COVID-19 test that doctors can order.
Lab Corp’s test has not yet been officially approved by the FDA but it is being allowed
It is unclear whether they have been approved by the FDA yet. Lab Corp says its test has been made available ‘pursuant’ to guidelines’.
A spokesman for Lab Corp told DailyMail.com on Tuesday afternoon: ‘The LabCorp 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), NAA test is made available pursuant to Immediately in Effect Guidance for Clinical Laboratories and Food and Drug Administration Staff issued by the FDA on February 29, 2020.
‘Pursuant to the policy set forth in that guidance, LabCorp is certified to perform high-complexity testing under CLIA in compliance with CLIA requirements.
‘The LabCorp 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), NAA test has been developed and validated, and is being performed by LabCorp, but FDA’s independent review of the validation is pending. LabCorp is pursuing an EUA for the test.’
Redfield elbow-bumped with Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro instead of shaking hands to avoid spreading germs
Mark Handley tweeted this graph charting the growth of cases in the US (pink) compared to that of Italy, purple
Only doctors can order them – they are not available for consumer purchase.
Redfield said on Tuesday that the majority of people who have tested positive for the virus in the US have no connection to China.
‘The epicenter, the new China is Europe. And there’s a lot of people coming back and forth from Europe.
‘We’re starting to see these communities and we are moving quickly to understand how address Europe,’ Redfield said.
Vice President Pence, with President Trump by his side, on Monday announced that co-pays for insurance companies for people either getting the test or seeking treatment after being positively diagnosed with coronavirus.
There are concerns over how quickly people being are tested and claims that some people who show up at hospitals with symptoms are being turned away.
On Tuesday, the Surgeon General said one million tests had been sent out already and that four million will be available by the end of the week.
The CDC says there are currently 75,000 that are available.
President Trump said last week that anyone who wanted a test could have one.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams said on Tuesday hat the reason the US was further behind than every other affected country in testing was that the CDC had to stand up a test it was satisfied with.
‘It’s important to understand – the CDC stood up a test in a record amount of time, less than a week. There were problems scaling up he test.
‘When we looked at the tests in other parts of the world, they weren’t being held to the same quality standards that people in the US expect. And that the FDA regulations require.
‘People in the US don’t care about the total number of tests – it’s whether or no they can get one.
‘We have over a million tests that have gone out earlier this week. We expect four million by the end of this week.
‘We want to get to a place where every American can get tested if their doctor says they need one. Over 72 state labs have the test.
‘Also, those labs (the private/state ones), they don’t have to report back to us. That’s why it’s hard for us to know how many can be done.
‘We have talked to state labs… right now no state public health lab is telling me that they can’t get the test or they’re having trouble meeting capacity,’ he said.
‘OVERWHELMED’ DOCTORS IN ITALY BEING FORCED TO CHOOSE WHO TO SAVE
A medic in northern Italy told a friend in the UK that hospitals were running at ‘200 per cent capacity’ with operating theaters hurriedly converted into intensive care units.
The medic’s comments were published in a Twitter thread by UK-based friend Jason van Schoor, an anesthetist and clinical fellow at University College London.
The medic’s comments were published in a Twitter thread by UK-based friend Jason van Schoor, an anesthetist and clinical fellow at University College London.