Sharon Begley writes in STAT that more than half of U.S. states will have to significantly step up their Covid-19 testing to even consider starting to relax stay-at-home orders after May 1, according to a new analysis by Harvard researchers and STAT.
The analysis shows that as the U.S. tries to move beyond its months-long coronavirus testing debacle — faulty tests, shortages of tests, and guidelines that excluded many people who should have been tested to mitigate the outbreak — it is at risk of fumbling the next challenge: testing enough people to determine which cities and states can safely reopen and stay open. Doing so will require the ability to catch reappearances of the coronavirus before it again spreads uncontrollably.
The White House has repeatedly expressed confidence about states’ ability to do enough testing to begin a phased reopening of the economy. In a briefing last Thursday, President Trump said he disagreed with comments by Anthony Fauci, the top government infectious disease expert, that “we are not there yet” with the number of tests and the capacity to perform them. “No, I think we’re doing a great job in testing,” the president said.