PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP AND HIS ADMINISTRATION HAVE CREATED THE BEST COVID-19 TESTING SYSTEM IN THE WORLD

Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 31, 2020 PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP AND HIS ADMINISTRATION HAVE CREATED THE BEST COVID-19 TESTING SYSTEM IN THE WORLD “We do tremendous testing. We have the best testing in the world.” – President Donald J. Trump   LEADING THE WORLD IN TESTING: President Donald J. Trump is ensuring that Americans have access to the most advanced and robust COVID-19 tests in the world. President Trump has revolutionized America’s testing system, and under his leadership, our Nation has conducted far more tests than any other country. The United States has already conducted more than 59 million tests, and we will soon have conducted 100 million tests. We are now averaging 810,000 tests per day, and during July, more than 930,000 COVID-19 tests were conducted in a single day. India has a population more than four times as large as the United States, but has only conducted around one-third of the number of tests. Millions of point-of-care COVID-19 tests provide patients with a turnaround time of just 15 minutes, and tests conducted by hospitals have a turnaround time of less than 24 hours. The Administration is aggressively investing in the expansion of point-of-care testing and supports pooling of samples to improve turnaround times even more. Thanks to President Trump’s revolutionary testing efforts, we have been able to track cases better than other countries. Countries that have not built a robust testing system in the way the United States has have not been able to capture as full of a picture of the number of cases in their populations. SUPPORTING OUR STATES: The Trump Administration is providing States with the testing resources they need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Administration is supporting States’ needs for COVID-19 testing supplies, including swabs and media. The Federal Government has distributed more than 44 million swabs and 36 million tubes of media to all 50 States, territories, and tribes since mid-March. More than 2,000 community-based testing sites are either completely federally supported or enabled by the Administration’s regulatory actions. 94% of the 13,000 Health Resources and Services Administration-funded federally qualified health centers are now offering COVID-19 testing. The Department of Health & Human Services is making a large-scale procurement of rapid point-of-care tests to be distributed to nursing homes in COVID-19 hotspots. The Administration is providing surge testing sites to communities that have experienced recent increases in cases and hospitalizations. Testing sites will conduct up to 5,000 tests per day for a period of seven to 12 days. More than 92,000 tests have been conducted in the temporary surge testing sites that HHS has set up in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Arizona, and California. SPURRING AMERICAN INGENUITY: The Trump Administration has given flexibility to States and the private sector to facilitate creation and development of new, innovative COVID-19 tests.  To accelerate testing, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed certain labs to begin using validated tests while their emergency use authorization requests are reviewed. The FDA gave States the ability to authorize tests manufactured and used within their own borders. The FDA has authorized 193 COVID-19 tests under emergency authorities, including 158 molecular tests, 33 antibody tests, and two antigen tests. Emergency use authorizations of point-of-care tests created by companies including Abbott, Cepheid, BD Veritor, and Quidel have greatly increased testing capacity and speed.