The White House's chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday that the United States has to do better with COVID-19 testing options.
In an interview on ABC News' ''This Week,'' Fauci conceded testing difficulties over the holidays has ''obviously'' been frustrating.
''If you look at the beginning of the administration, the beginning of the year, there were essentially no rapid point of care home tests available,'' he asserted, according to a transcript of the interview. ''Now, there are over nine of them and more coming.''
He also supported President Joe Biden's defensive posture in an ABC News interview this past week, noting that ''the situation where you have such a high demand, a conflation of events, omicron stirring people to get appropriately concerned and wanting to get tested as well as the fact of the run on tests during the holiday season.''
''We've obviously got to do better,'' Fauci said. ''I think things will improve greatly as we get into January, but that doesn't help us today and tomorrow. So you're right, that is something that is of concern.''
Fauci also said he was ''dismayed'' that supporters of former President Donald Trump booed him after he said he'd received the COVID booster shot.
''I was stunned by that,'' Fauci said. ''I mean, given the fact of how popular he is with that group,'' he said. ''That they would boo him, which tells me how recalcitrant they are about being told what they should do. And I think that his continuing to say that people should get vaccinated and articulating that to them, in my mind, is a good thing, I hope he keeps it up.''
On Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki also defended the administration's effort to ramp up at-home coronavirus testing amid a nationwide shortage of tests. The Biden administration announced last week it was ordering 500 million tests to send Americans who want them — noting, however, that the system for ordering them won't be up and running until January.
Psaki said that Biden took steps after the emergence of the delta variant over the summer to expand testing capacity, including a $3 billion investment in at-home testing capacity.
Biden has also said that in January, health insurance will begin to cover at-home tests and half a billion free rapid tests will become available to be delivered at home.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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