[kabar]

You know I still don’t understand what went wrong with the test kits. Supposedly the CDC wanted a special test kit of their own but it’s confusing to me.

Pat, you have the gist right. The CDC bureaucrats wanted their own test and the first one they produced has some problems with a reagent. The CDC was never geared up to handle this level of testing. The numbers are unprecedented. Trump pivoted to the private sector and now the US is the leader in testing. After all is said and done, the US will have tested more people than anyone else.

Basically, the CDC wanted to do it the way they have always done it. Typical of a bureaucracy. Trump made the management decision to go elsewhere. You're fired.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

Great post

[norwaypinesavage]

"Basically, the CDC wanted to do it the way they have always done it. Typical of a bureaucracy"

Worse than that, they actually prevented other ways of doing it. When Washington State gave up on the CDC after the CDC failed to get them test kits that worked, they started doing it on their own. The CDC then ordered them to stop testing, even though they had no alternative. That added to the problems the state is now having.