Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says the U.S. may never be able to test for COVID-19 as much as China has, but improvements to the public health response must be made to control the coronavirus pandemic.
Gottlieb’s comments come as the Chinese city of Qingdao announced plans to test 9 million people for the virus over a period of five days following the discovery of a dozen cases linked to a hospital treating coronavirus patients.
“We don’t need to have their level of surveillance state to have better testing and tracing in place, and we could be doing a lot better at calling on collective action for people to wear masks on a more routine basis,” Gottlieb said Monday during an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Nearly 215,000 people have died in the U.S. from COVID-19, and more than 7.7 million have been infected. More than half of U.S. states are seeing an increase in new cases, with five states reporting a jump of more than 50% in one week.
An additional 20,000 COVID-19 deaths by the end of October are “inevitable,” according to Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In China, 4,739 people have died from the novel coronavirus and 85,578 have been infected.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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