As President Donald Trump’s administration works to ramp up coronavirus testing, he is suggesting that testing for the virus may be “overrated.”
“We have the best testing in the world,” Trump said during a tour of a medical equipment distribution facility on Thursday. “Could be that testing’s, frankly, overrated. Maybe it is overrated.”
Watch the video below:
Here’s Trump saying that coronavirus testing might be “overrated” pic.twitter.com/4I36rRr7V5
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2020
The latest data finds that the U.S. has more than 1.4 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus — far more than any other country has reported. But, Trump suggested that higher number is simply the result of testing.
“We have more cases than anybody in the world, but why? Because we do more testing,” he said.
He added, “When you test, you have a case. When you test you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases. They don’t want to write that. It’s common sense. We test much more.”
TRUMP: "When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn't do any testing we would have very few cases." pic.twitter.com/tEX1uXQbmp
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2020
While Trump declared that the U.S. has the “best testing in the world,” he has been criticized for the initial lag in coronavirus testing — even from members of his own party.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said that the country’s testing capacity “nothing to celebrate whatsoever.”
According to The COVID Tracking Project, the U.S. has conducted roughly 10 million tests since the beginning of the outbreak. And it is testing between 300,000 and 400,000 people per day.
That number is low, according to some health experts who have suggested that the U.S. should be conducting millions of people per day.
Experts say it is crucial to conduct enough tests, especially as the country begins to reopen so that officials can track and isolate individuals who are infected with the virus to prevent outbreaks around the country.