More
than 2 million tests have been done in the country so far, but the
tests are not available to many who need them, said Dr. Stephen
Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
"We need to do more, no question about that," Hahn said on ABC's
"This Week."
The lack of adequate testing has hampered the U.S. response to the
pandemic, which has killed more than 21,600 people in the country
and infected more than half a million.
President Donald Trump last week played down the importance of
testing, saying, "It's not necessary but it would be a good thing to
have."
Top experts on the White House coronavirus task force have made it
clear testing is important, however, particularly as the country
takes its first steps toward reopening, a move the Republican
president has said he wants to make as soon as possible.
The governors of New York and New Jersey, as well as the mayor of
hard-hit New York City, pleaded for more test kits and testing
capability on Sunday.
"Further ramping up testing, both diagnostic as well as the antibody
tests, will really be necessary as we move beyond May and into the
summer months and then into the fall," Hahn said.
Diagnostic testing determines if somebody is infected with the virus
and antibody testing shows who has been infected and is therefore
immune. Both will be important in getting people back into the
workplace and containing the virus as that happens, the experts
said.
"When one starts to relax some of those restrictions, we know that
there will be people who will be getting infected. I mean, that is
just reality," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN's "State of the
Union."
"The critical issue is to be able to, in real time, identify,
isolate and contact trace. That's called containment."
The FDA is working with developers around the country to try to ramp
up diagnostic testing, Hahn said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "So all
hands on deck to try to get more diagnostic tests in."
The FDA has approved one antibody test and Hahn warned that some
other tests on the market may not be accurate.
[to top of second column] |
Governor Phil Murphy said New Jersey has been able to test only symptomatic
patients and needs more testing to stay ahead of the virus.
He told CBS "Face the Nation" he had been in intense discussions over the
weekend with leaders in neighboring states "on the whole question of testing,
contact tracing, what are the rules of the road going to be for things like bars
and restaurants to make sure we don't have unintended consequences on one side
of the river versus the other."
His New York counterpart, Andrew Cuomo, said on Sunday they needed more tests,
more federal help and a public health strategy that is consistent with an
economic strategy.
"The last thing we want to see is an uptick in the infection rate," Cuomo told
reporters.
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said he was pleading with the White House and
FEMA for more testing to go beyond prioritized hospitalized patients, healthcare
workers and first responders.
De Blasio told reporters he wanted a "Phase Two" test plan to focus on
communities of color, low-income communities and immigrants and said he needed
110,000 individual testing kits this week.
The United States could be looking at an 18-month period of rolling flareups
until a vaccine or therapy is found, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
President Neel Kashkari told CBS.
To reopen safely, U.S. communities must be able to verify whether anyone who has
symptoms has contracted the disease, said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the
Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University.
"Right now, we can't do that in most places in the country, there's just not
enough capacity. We need to be able to have the capacity," he said on "Fox News
Sunday."
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington; Additional reporting by Katie Paul in
San Francisco and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Tom Brown and Daniel
Wallis)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |