[Church:] Welcome back, everyone. Well, critics have been slamming the Trump administration over the low rate of testing for the coronavirus in the U.S., but on Wednesday President Trump argued that the U.S. has done more testing than any other country in the world. Take a listen.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] We have now tested with the best tests far more than anybody else. When I say anybody else, I'm talking about other countries. No country is even close.
[Church:] Well, the president is partially right. The U.S. has overtaken South Korea in the total number of tests, but the U.S. has conducted far fewer tests than South Korea in proportion to its population, making the president's comments somewhat misleading. And for those people in the U.S. who have access to testing, getting their results can be painfully slow. Our Drew Griffin is digging into that part of the story.
[Drew Griffin, Cnn Senior Investigative Correspondent:] Commercial labs, even among the country's largest, tell CNN coronavirus testing results are seriously delayed because of backlog. Quest Diagnostics said the lab's current turnaround time is an average four to five days but can be as long as seven days, and although the company is "rapidly expanding testing capacity, demand for the testing is growing faster and we cannot accommodate everyone who wants testing and meet tight turnaround time expectations." It's just the latest issue in a long list of disastrous delays of testing since coronavirus first arrived in the
[U.s. Dr. Leana Wen, George Washington University:] That lack of testing is preventing us from understanding the true spread of coronavirus in communities. It's almost certain that not only in New York and the identified hot spots but all over the country there are significant underestimates of the true number of coronavirus cases.
[Griffin:] First there weren't enough test kits, then there was a shortage still ongoing in the supplies needed to conduct the tests. Now the critical delay, which is having a dangerous effect in hospitals and other health care facilities, is delays in getting test results.
[Dr. Alex Gleninger, University Of Washington's Department Of Laboratory Medicine:] The turnaround time can save personal protective equipment. That's probably the most important thing right now.
[Griffin:] When doctors don't know which patients are infected with COVID-19, they waste personal protective equipment because they have to switch out masks, gowns, everything in between patients to prevent the virus from spreading even more. It's making the uncertainty inside hospitals even more terrifying.
[Sheridan-gonzalez:] People are very frightened of contracting the illness, of not having the equipment to protect themselves, transmitting it to other patients, transmitting it to each other and transmitting it to family members. There is absolutely not enough testing going on.
[Griffin:] And shockingly, for the most powerful nation on earth, many health care workers cannot get tested unless their symptoms become severe. In New York City EMS workers say they do not have N95 masks or enough personal protective equipment. They are being exposed, getting sick, and told to just go home. They are getting no tests.
[Oren Barzlay, Fdny Ems Union:] We are not provided with any tests even after we've been exposed and showing signs and symptoms of coming down with the virus which is it's unacceptable to us.
[Griffin:] Health care workers, first responders unable to get tested, unable to get proper equipment daily make the decision to go to work and risk being infected or give up. This nurse from Ohio quit, she says, to save her own family.
[Stacy Foytik, Cleveland Ohio:] I feel that people should know that if we walked into rooms like this a month ago, a year ago we would have been reprimanded. We would have lost our jobs because, what were we doing? Not providing safe care.
[Griffin:] The bottom line is, despite what the president is saying, testing remains an issue. We're hearing it from doctors, from hospitals, from nurses, and even the labs themselves. The demand for testing for this coronavirus is still far exceeding the capacity to process those tests. Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.
[Church:] Very sobering report there. And the U.S. Senate takes a giant step towards saving the U.S. economy from a recession, but it's not done yet and the first checks could still be weeks away. We will explain how much the average American might get. Back in just a moment.