'There may be "slightly less" positive coronavirus cases now than there were in April because there is more testing, but there is no question that there is a surge of the disease, particularly in the nation's Sunbelt and the government is approaching it with "extreme seriousness," Adm. Brett Giroir, who is heading up the Trump administration's testing efforts, said Monday.
"We do know we are having more cases than we had two, three, four weeks ago, that is very clear," Giroir told CNN's "New Day." "We're having surge testing and sending medical professionals, so it's all hands on deck."
Giroir added that there are teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in all states that were cases are climbing.
"This is serious, but we know how to stop this," said Giroir, pointing out that wearing masks or face coverings, physical distancing, and hand-washing remain "incredibly important," as well as controlling indoor bars and restaurants.
Delayed test results also remain a concern, said Giroir, noting that the main issue concerns big commercial labs.
"As of yesterday, one state was at five days average," he said. "Seven states between four and five days, 18 states were between two and three days and the rest were between three and four days. That is not optimum. We want to reduce that."
Labs also are reporting shortages of testing reagents, and Giroir said allocations are being matched in states so they can meet testing goals.
"In June, the states really crushed their testing goals of over 16 million tests and are routinely doing 750,000 to 800,000 tests per day," said Giroir. "On Friday I think our number was almost 850,000.
However, there is "almost an infinite demand" for tests, said Giroir, and he wants to quit retesting everyone who has tested positive.
"We have lots of data that shows after eight or nine days you cannot transmit the virus," said Giroir. "The virus is gone. We're seeing people getting retested four, five, six, eight times and that's completely unnecessary."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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