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Tags: test kits | testing capacity | governors

Governors Want More Tests Before Reopening

test kits with swabs and specimen holders in plastic medical use bags are shown
Testing kits for the novel coronavirus are stacked at the Velocity Urgent Care April 15, 2020 in Woodbridge, Virginia. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By    |   Monday, 20 April 2020 08:00 AM EDT

As people protest and rally for governors to ease restrictions and allow normal life to resume amid the coronavirus outbreak, many governors say they need more testing before they can open their states back up.

Harvard researchers told CNN that for the country to reopen and remain open, testing must go up to at least 500,000 people per day by May 1. Testing is currently at 150,000 people per day.

President Donald Trump said states have more than enough testing kits and said governors were not using their resources properly.

“They don't want to use all of the capacity that we've created. We have tremendous capacity," Trump said during a briefing at the White House over the weekend. "They know that. The governors know that. The Democrat governors know that. They're the ones that are complaining.”

But governors paint a different picture. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam called the president's comments “delusional.”  He told CNN's Jake Tapper on "The State of the Union" on Sunday that the state doesn’t have enough swabs. 

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan also told Tapper that Trump's claim that governors have plenty of tests and simply aren't doing their job is "absolutely false.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker agreed that he wants to reopen recreation for summer, but to do so, the state needs additional lab technicians, more reagent and more RNA extractors to analyze specimens taken.

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As people protest and rally for governors to ease restrictions and allow normal life to resume amid the coronavirus outbreak, many governors say they need more testing before they can open their states back up. Harvard researchers told CNN that for the country to reopen and...
test kits, testing capacity, governors
229
2020-00-20
Monday, 20 April 2020 08:00 AM
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