In the early hours of Friday the 13th, President Donald Trump used his Twitter platform to express his disdain with Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s inefficient testing, which he seemed to blame for the state of the coronavirus pandemic.
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The president tweeted his viewpoints around 6:20 a.m. Friday, just hours after national health officials also criticized the national testing system. However, those officials, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease expert at National Institutes of Health, did not place blame squarely on the CDC.
"The system is not really geared to what we need right now,” Fauci said. “That is a failing. It is a failing, let’s admit it.”
Trump’s tweet appears to put the blame on CDC’s inadequate testing and “changes” made by former President Barack Obama.
"For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied, its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped," he tweeted. "President Obama made changes that only complicated things further....."
Trump goes on to point out the center’s response to swine flu, which led to “thousands dying.” He also changes have been made to improve the testing system and cut the “red tape.”
As of Friday morning, his tweet had been retweeted more than 12,000 times and drawn more than 31,000 comments.
Exactly a week earlier, the president visited the CDC to examine the center’s quarters and address the coronavirus outbreak. At the time, he said testing was readily available.
"Anybody right now and yesterday — anybody that needs a test gets a test. We — they're there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful. Anybody that needs a test gets a test," Trump said during his visit.
Several folks responded to the Friday morning tweet, disputing the president’s stance.
Others agreed with Trump’s assessment of why the coronavirus had spread throughout the country, with more than 40 people dying so far in the U.S. Thousands of folks have died across the globe from the virus, which started in Wuhan, China.
For about a month, U.S. health officials have advised they would tap into a national network of labs that monitor for flu. However, the system is only just getting started.
As of Thursday afternoon, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported about 1,260 U.S. illnesses — a number that trailed independent researchers, who are adding reports from individual states more quickly.
On Thursday, the CDC revealed that some labs had begun the testing. It said it had begun in Chicago and four sites in California — Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Clara.
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