March 18, 2020 3:30 a.m.
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, along with 15 of his colleagues, are demanding answers from the Trump administration on what he said is a failure to ensure that diagnostic testing kits are available for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.
The group sent a letter to Vice-President Mike Pence and said, “this failure has resulted in a significant delay in detecting and responding to the first cases of COVID-19 in the United States, dramatically increasing the scope of the epidemic, and placing millions at risk”. The letter said the problems, “have been exacerbated by the numerous false statements by Vice President Pence, by other members of the Task Force, and by President Trump about the status of the testing”.
Wyden’s release said the ability to accurately and swiftly test for COVID-19 is critical to making public health-decisions-like social distancing, quarantining, and contact-tracing-which can slow the exponential growth of the virus. The letter said the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci has called America’s testing system “failing”, and “not really geared to what we need right now”.
The release said to address their concerns, the senators asked a series of questions in the letter, about the nation’s testing capacity, what they called “the Trump administrations inability to provide clear information” and purported manufacturing shortages facing labs across the county.