The coronavirus enemy remained 'invisible' because the Trump administration didn't make the effort to see it

WASHINGTON — In late February, Vice President Mike Pence was appointed to lead the White House coronavirus task force by President Trump. He became immediately alarmed by the shortfalls in testing availability.

That helps explain why, two months later, virtually all of the problems Pence identified remain as vexing as they were when he took charge. And it explains why top public health figures talk about testing much as they did when the pathogen first made landfall in the United States in early January: that is, as a conundrum that would be resolved at some unknown future date.

So why, four months into an epidemic, is a nation ranked as the world’s most prepared for a pandemic still waiting for a testing breakthrough? Now the Trump administration is moving to reopen the country, even though it has not tested enough Americans to fully grasp the scope of the disease, let alone begin declaring victory over what Trump likes to call “the invisible enemy.” That enemy has remained invisible in good part because most people have no means of finding out if they are, or have recently been, infected with the coronavirus.

Frustrations with these delays have been felt by ordinary Americans simply seeking a coronavirus test and prominent figures dismayed at a superpower struggling to deploy relatively simple medical equipment. In a Reddit question-and-answer session, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates lamented that the “testing in the U.S. is not organized yet. In the next few weeks, I hope the government fixes this by having a website you can go to to find out about home testing and kiosks.

The testing shortfalls are rooted in the administration’s decision to let states handle the testing issue on their own. At the same time, many states wanted the federal government to give them license to pursue their own plans, even as they pressed Washington to give them the resources to bring those plans to fruition.

In an emailed response to questions from Yahoo News, Giroir said that “testing production capacity keeps getting better and better,” and that laboratories and hospitals across the nation could test between 120,000 and 150,000 people per day. Giroir additionally said that the White House task force was “encouraging diagnostic test developers and manufacturers to rapidly develop new technologies and scale up testing inventory.

alexnazaryan Wow you Yahoo and CNN had boots on the ground and said nothing! You have blood on your hands!

alexnazaryan Laughable leftist hack Nazaryan.

alexnazaryan Idiotic writer A. Nazaryan is leftist hack not worthy reading. Same guy who compared Cruz supporters to Nazis.

alexnazaryan Bullsh*t.

alexnazaryan Are you guys out of biz yet?

alexnazaryan

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