White House pushes states to test 2 percent of their populations for coronavirus

President Donald Trump boasted Monday that the United States has “prevailed on testing” — despite public health experts’ warnings that millions more tests per week are needed to safely reopen the country.

"If people want to get tested, they get tested," he said at a Rose Garden briefing where he and other federal health officials revealed a plan to help states test at least 2 percent of their populations for the coronavirus in May.

That would amount to at least 12.9 million tests, according to Brad Smith, director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. To meet that goal, the federal government is providing states with 12.9 million swabs and nearly 10 million tubes of chemicals used to transport samples.

The White House also revealed how it plans to distribute $11 billion from the CARES Act to support state coronavirus testing plans. The money will be distributed to states based on a formula that considers the prevalence of the coronavirus in states and their overall populations.

The U.S. ran approximately 1.9 million coronavirus tests last week, according to HHS testing czar Brett Giroir, and has conducted approximately 9 million tests since January. "No matter how you look at it, America is leading the world on testing," he said during a Rose Garden press briefing.

White House officials have repeatedly noted that the U.S. has conducted more tests than any other nation. But the U.S. also has reported far more cases than any other country — necessitating a high level of testing to help bring the U.S. coronavirus outbreak under control by identifying and isolating the sick.

The current weekly rate of testing is well below the level that public health experts say is necessary to safely reopen the country — although several states have begun easing social distancing measures.

“Estimates for the number of tests we need range from 3.5 million to tens of millions per week,” Caitlin Rivers, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, testified to Congress last week.

One sign of progress in the latest U.S. testing data is the decreasing percentage of people who test positive. "In 31 states as of last night, the positivity rate is less than 10 percent," Giroir said. "It's not a litmus test, but it's a good idea that we are doing plenty enough testing that we can enter phase one for careful reopening."

Giroir also said that "everybody who needs a test can get a test" — defining “need” narrowly as people with symptoms or known exposure to someone who has tested positive.

Moments later he acknowledged that the U.S. will need to increase the number of tests it performs by more than a million per week to ensure it can test people with symptoms and their close contacts and conduct ongoing surveillance to detect new clusters of infection.

To meet the White House goal of testing 12.9 million people in May, states are being asked to provide updates on their testing strategies and report specific statistics to the federal government within a few weeks, a senior administration official told reporters Monday.

The Monday afternoon briefing came days after the White House announced that at least two staffers had been infected with the virus.

Trump did not wear a mask during the event. But he did speak from a podium several feet away from other members of the White House coronavirus task force, flanked by props that included machines for processing coronavirus tests.

Top health officials, including Giroir and HHS Secretary Alex Azar, wore masks that they removed before speaking — in keeping with the White House’s new guidance for aides. Vice President Mike Pence, whose spokesperson recently tested positive for the virus, was not present.

Asked if he would keep his distance from Pence going forward, Trump praised Pence’s leadership on the task force before adding: “We can talk on the phone.”

Reporters, who sat in metal folding chairs spaced apart, asked questions with masks on, including about the growing number of White House officials who are self-isolating after possible exposure to the virus.

“It can happen,” Trump said, shrugging off reports of aides who recently became infected. “It’s a hidden enemy.”