Posted on 03/08/2020 7:42:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Is there or is there not a shortage of kits to test for the coronavirus? That the question even has to be asked does not reflect well on the administration's response to the crisis.
And yet, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told ABC News on Friday there was no shortage, contradicting the White House and health professionals across the country.
“There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been,” Azar said on ABC News Friday. “We will have by the end of this weekend over 1.2 million tests around America in public health labs as well as in private and commercial labs, and that is scaling up by the millions, ramping up rapidly.”
Vice President Mike Pence told the media on Thursday that the U.S. would come up short of a million test kits distributed by the end of the week.
Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the federal government's coronavirus response, made the acknowledgment Thursday while visiting a factory in Minnesota, the BBC reported.
"We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward," he said.
The BBC said that later, speaking in Washington, Pence added: "We still have a ways to go to ensure that tests are available."
The BBC said Pence instead moved the goal to next week, when he predicted kits for 1.2 million people would be available.
Azar is correct when he says that manufacture of test kits is "ramping up rapidly." Pence says that 4 million kits will be shipped by the end of next week.
Americans are going to need them.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
FWIW, this reads to me like someone trying to gin up a game of lets-you-and-him-fight.
I ain’t obliging.
Agreed. But to go further, that message should be fact and medical science based fact and not driven by political or election concerns - on either side of the aisle. Yes, the message needs to be measured and tempered and the POTUS and his VP and cabinet (and this task force) certainly has to allay fears and not create unnecessary public panic or roil the markets, but inconsistent and contradictory messaging is doing just that. And FWIW, not a fan of Azar.
From Rick Moran, the never Trumper???
He was just quoting the CDC
You need a doctor’s prescription for almost any test. You can’t go to Walgreens and get a test for cholesterol, cardiac enzymes, or diabetes, etc. To be tested for COVID19 a sample has to be provided to a lab, you can’t get the test results yourself like a pregnancy test.
Yes, there is a major problems with our tests. Maybe by next week some. The CDC, not democrats or republicans, made a huge mistake a month ago and decided to come up with their own testing instead of using testing available through the markets. We are way behind from the rest of the world i.e, even S Korea. Huge mistakes made.
You mean he didn’t include remarks of his own.
Then, I apologize.
Yes, there is a major problems with our tests. Maybe by next week some. The CDC, not democrats or republicans, made a huge mistake a month ago and decided to come up with their own testing instead of using testing available through the markets. We are way behind from the rest of the world i.e, even S Korea. Huge mistakes made.
Yeah but.... are those real test kits? or are they the presumptive test kits? or are they the test kits that your family doctor would use? BTW, what do they look like? How are they used?
RE : How are they used?
CDC explains their usage here ( if you have patience to read it ):
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/rt-pcr-detection-instructions.html
So, a shortage here in the US would be expected. Thank those who outsource critical goods.
Merchants do not respect the soil on which they stand.
--Thomas Jefferson--
My hope is that this will teach us the lesson that Economic Nationalism is the way to go.
Rick Moron deliberately misleads with his analysis of this sentence. The statement that demand will - in the future - likely outstrip current supply does not mean that availability at this time is impaired. Azar's response is not incompatible with Pence's statements, notwithstanding the numerical shortfall of the goal of 1.2 million test kits by the end of the week:
“There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been,” Azar said on ABC News Friday. “We will have by the end of this weekend over 1.2 million tests around America in public health labs as well as in private and commercial labs, and that is scaling up by the millions, ramping up rapidly.”
Moron certainly is an apt name (I know it's spelled phonetically here).
I hope so , too. On the other hand, I think only a world war will do that. Greed is a strong force, not overcome by either patriotism or love for one’s countrymen.
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