The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have only run 70 coronavirus tests within the last week, new figures reveal.
The federal heath agency ran 54 tests on March 5 and 16 tests on March 6 – and no tests between March 7 and March 10.
What’s more, only eight tests were completed by US public health laboratories on March 10 – a 97 percent drop from the day before.
This is despite promises from the Trump administration that America would be ramping up testing and that more than one million kits would soon be distributed to all 50 states.
New figures have revealed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have only run 70 tests in the last seven days. Pictured: The CDC lab kit for the virus
The CDC completed just 54 tests on March 5 and 16 tests on March 6 – and no tests between March 7 and March 10 (center column)
This is despite promises from the Trump administration that millions of test kits would be distributed by next week. Pictured: President Donald Trump (left) speaks to reporters at the Capitol after attending the Senate Republicans weekly policy luncheon with Vice President Mike Pence (right), March 10
Since January 18, just 11,079 specimens have been tested for the virus that causes COVID-19 at CDC labs and US public health laboratories.
This is notwithstanding comments from Vice President Mike Pence at a Monday press conference that one million test kits had been distributed and that four million were expected to go about by the end of this week or the next.
However, he did not specify where the kits were sent to, or would be sent to.
Both Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Vice President Pence said the government currently does not have enough kits to keep up with demand.
It’s also lower than the 75,000 ‘cumulative’ kits available for testing across all 50 states, according to Dr Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Worldwide, more than 128,000 people have been infected and more than 4,700 people have died
Yahoo News reports that only a single private lab is currently performing tests despite the administration stressing that the private sector would help cover the deficit.
‘This is not a problem we can test our way out of,’ Dr Stephen Redd, head of the CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, testified before Congress on Wednesday.
His comments seemed to imply that it would be impossible to test every single one of the nearly 330 million people living in the US.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, CDC director Dr Robert Redfield told Congress that a lack of funding was the reason America’s response to the outbreak has been slow.
‘The truth is we’ve underinvested in the public health labs,’ Dr Redfield said.
‘There’s not enough equipment, there’s not enough people, there’s not enough internal capacity, there’s no search capacity.’
There is reportedly just one single private lab is currently performing tests. Pictured: A patient is loaded into an ambulance at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington – the epicenter of one of the largest outbreaks in the US – on March 9
The CDC has suffered several testing delays stemming from manufacturing errors to lack of funding. Pictured: Medical personnel help load passengers from the Grand Princess cruise ship onto airplanes at Oakland International Airport in Oakland, California on March 10,
Less than week after the CDC shipped its first batch of kits, several state labs said the diagnostic was returning ‘inconclusive results.’
This forced the federal health agency to remanufacture components of the kit.
Additionally, tests can take anywhere from two to seven says to return results.
It’s why states filed emergency requests to conduct their own testing and why institutions like the Cleveland Clinic have developed a coronavirus test that will be able to deliver results in just hours.
Worldwide, more than 125,000 people have been infected in more than 100 countries and more than 4,600 people have died.
In the US, more than 1,500 cases have been confirmed in at least 46 states and the District of Columbia and 39 people have died.
However, health experts have warned that these numbers are probably much lower than the actual figures due to a lack of testing.