The finger-pointing is about to go into overdrive over testing (or lack of it) for the Coronavirus. And the person soon to take the brunt of the blame is Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar, the former drug company executive.
Politico writes Azar failed to coordinate the response to the deadly virus.
“Numerous problems with the Trump administration’s testing regimen have come to light: Coronavirus tests developed by CDC were flawed, possibly because the lab itself was contaminated. The resulting lack of test capacity forced U.S. officials to screen a limited number of patients across January and February, with the CDC testing fewer than 500 Americans at the same time that China was likely testing at least 1 million of its own residents. Meanwhile, public health officials had no fallback testing option until the Food and Drug Administration granted approval for hospitals and other labs to develop their own homegrown tests on Saturday — more than six weeks after the first U.S. case of coronavirus was identified.“
One administration official told Politico, “this has been a management failure,” saying that Azar didn’t plan for a worst-case scenario that’s “grown more likely by the day.“
Azar made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows where he touted the fact that soon there will be 75,000 test kits for Coronavirus across the country.
China and South Korea have tested millions for the virus, while the CDC labs in the U.S. have run fewer than 500 tests.
Expect the number of confirmed cases to jump as more testing become available.
