The mainstream media spends very little time, if any, reporting on the successes of President Trump’s efforts to combat COVID-19 in the US. Plenty of criticism is directed at his efforts, but the real achievements are overlooked and underreported. It may seem as if the president is tooting his own horn, so to speak, when he talks about the monumental success of his White House Coronavirus Response Task Force, but here’s why he does it: if he doesn’t, no one else will.
Testing is the key to beating the virus
As Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said in a recent Senate hearing, “All roads back to work and back to school run through testing.”
The president is very focused on the amount of testing done in the US and points out that the US has done more coronavirus testing than any other country.
We built the most advanced and robust testing anywhere in the world, and we’ve done more testing than any country anywhere in the world.
President Trump continues to emphasize COVID-19 testing capability and says that it is a core element of the plan to safely “reopen” America.
10,000,000 COVID-19 tests
In fact, as of this week, about 3% of the US population has been tested, or almost 10,000,000 tests have been administered since March in the US. For perspective consider South Korea, admittedly a smaller country with fewer people, but heralded as managing the virus outbreak well. South Korea has conducted, as of this week, 655,000 tests, which amounts to about 1% of their population.
The US is by far, the country hardest hit by COVID-19, with over a million reported cases, and now over 80,000 deaths. There is some speculation that the number of deaths includes deaths of patients with the virus whose deaths weren’t necessarily caused by the virus, but regardless, the numbers are higher than any other country.
Testing at 300,000 per day in the US
President Trump also pointed out that testing capacity per day had doubled from 150,000 to 300,000 per day.
Three weeks ago, we were conducting roughly 150,000 tests per day. Now we’re doing approximately 300,000 tests per day—a 100 percent increase—and it will go up substantially from that number. President Trump
The FDA has already granted emergency use approval to more than 90 different tests. These include diagnostic tests, antibody or serology tests, and now an antigen test. The point of care diagnostic tests can yield results in minutes, an improvement in waiting for results from tests that have to be sent to a lab.
According to the White House :
“New antibody tests, antigen tests, point-of-care nucleic acid testing, and genomic sequencing technologies are under development, which will enhance our coronavirus monitoring efforts.”
According to the Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Brett Giroir, the antigen tests are simpler than other tests:
This is different than the nucleic acid tests, which are very high complexity, requires the amplification of the genetic material. The antigen test really looks for the presence of the viral protein in the nose.
The antigen test will also increase the number of tests being done per day by hundreds of thousands, effectively doubling the number being done now, according to Giroir:
Do the math. That’s 9 million point-of-care tests that we will have every month in just a few weeks. It will clearly add to and, to a certain degree, transform our landscape.
Testing available for anyone that needs it
The best news of all is that testing is now widely available for those that need it. According to Giroir, testing is now available to anyone, whether they exhibit signs of the virus or believe they have been in contact with someone that has the virus.
Aid for the states
The recent CARES act bill, passed in response to the coronavirus crisis, includes $11 billion dollars for state COVID-19 testing. Especially high-risk populations, such as nursing homes and cities with high numbers of COVID-19 cases will be prioritized in the distribution of the funds.
Watch Sen. Alexander, Chairman of the Senate Health Committee talk about the importance of testing and the types of tests available in order to open up the country.
1,851 Responses
Hi, i feel that i saw you visited my blog so i came to “return the desireâ€.I’m attempting to find issues to enhance my site!I guess its adequate to use a few of your ideas!!
I loved as much as you’ll receive carried out right here. The sketch is attractive, your authored subject matter stylish. nonetheless, you command get got an impatience over that you wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come more formerly again since exactly the same nearly a lot often inside case you shield this hike.
After looking at a number of the blog articles on your website, I really appreciate your technique of blogging. I saved it to my bookmark webpage list and will be checking back in the near future. Take a look at my web site too and let me know how you feel.
Aw, this was a very good post. In thought I must devote writing like that moreover – spending time and actual effort to produce a very good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate alot and no indicates seem to get something accomplished.
Hi there this is somewhat of off topic but I was wanting to know if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding expertise so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be enormously appreciated!
I like the manner you have concluded this article …
Hello! Would you mind if I share your blog with my myspace group? There’s a lot of people that I think would really enjoy your content. Please let me know. Cheers|
Howdy! I just would like to give you a huge thumbs up for the excellent info you have right here on this post. I will be returning to your website for more soon.
Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you penning this post and the rest of the site is really good.
Very good article! We are linking to this particularly great content on our site. Keep up the good writing.
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you penning this post plus the rest of the website is also very good.
Your manner of addressin this topic is both terrific as well as motivating.
Fantastic goods from you, man. I’ve understand your stuff previous to and you are just extremely wonderful. I really like what you’ve acquired here, certainly like what you are saying and the way in which you say it. You make it enjoyable and you still take care of to keep it sensible. I cant wait to read much more from you. This is really a tremendous website.
I like what you guys are up also. Such clever work and reporting! Keep up the superb works guys I have incorporated you guys to my blogroll. I think it will improve the value of my site 🙂
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, this is great blog. An excellent read. I will certainly be back.
Hello there, just became alert to your blog through Google, and found that it’s truly informative. I?m gonna watch out for brussels. I will be grateful if you continue this in future. Lots of people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!
Hi there! This article could not be written any better! Looking through this article reminds me of my previous roommate! He constantly kept preaching about this. I most certainly will forward this post to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!
It’s an remarkable paragraph in favor of all the internet people; they will get advantage from it I am sure.|
very good put up, i actually love this web site, carry on it
I think the admin of this web site is really working hard for his web page, since here every data is quality based data.|
We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your website offered us with valuable info to work on. You’ve done a formidable job and our entire community will be grateful to you.
When I originally commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get several e-mails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove people from that service? Bless you!
You have covered this topic professionally.
I think this is one of the most important information for me. And i’m glad reading your article. But want to remark on few general things, The site style is perfect, the articles is really excellent : D. Good job, cheers
It’s hard to seek out knowledgeable people on this matter, but you sound like you understand what you’re speaking about! Thanks
Thank you for another informative website. Where else could I get that kind of info written in such an ideal way? I’ve a project that I’m just now working on, and I have been on the look out for such information.
Valuable information. Fortunate me I discovered your web site accidentally, and I’m shocked why this coincidence did not came about in advance! I bookmarked it.|
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you could do with some pics to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, this is wonderful blog. An excellent read. I will definitely be back.
Wonderful article! We will be linking to this great content on our website. Keep up the great writing.
Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The words in your article seem to be running off the screen in Safari. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know. The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue solved soon. Kudos
Excellent post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed! Very useful information specifically the last part 🙂 I care for such info much. I was looking for this particular info for a very long time. Thank you and best of luck.
Hey, I think your blog might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your blog site in Ie, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, excellent blog!
The next time I read a blog, I hope that it does not fail me as much as this one. After all, I know it was my choice to read through, but I really thought you would probably have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you weren’t too busy looking for attention.