“We don’t know” how many coronavirus tests have been done, says US health secretary
US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says his department isn’t sure how many tests for the novel coronavirus have been performed in the United States.
“We don't know exactly how many because of hundreds of thousands of our tests have gone out to private labs and hospitals that currently do not report in to CDC.
"We're working with the CDC and those partners to get an IT reporting system up and running
hopefully this week where we would be able to get that data to keep track of how many we're testing,” he added.
Azar went on to say: “
We think we've got probably 10,000 a day could be getting tested by the
end of the week -- 20,000 a day according to a study by AEI that I've heard about. We've got 2.1 million tests available, 1.1 million have shipped. We actually have a surplus at the moment that are
awaiting orders to be shipped.”
“A private vendor shipped most of those 1.1 million that shipped were from a private vendor selling to their customers, and those entities that used their tests do not have to report back to CDC. But we're
trying to set up a reporting system where they would in effect do that,” Azar said.
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