White House Coronavirus Testing Strategy Puts Onus On States, Says Federal Government Is A ‘Last Resort’

TOPLINE

The White House on Monday released a testing strategy to help the U.S. ramp up its capabilities to test for cases of the novel coronavirus, leaving the bulk of the administration and responsibility on individual states to develop their own plans.

KEY FACTS

Crucial quote

“Testing plans and rapid response programs will be federally supported, State managed, and locally executed,” the document says.

Chief critics

Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, called the White House’s plan “inadequate,” and said the U.S. needed to do 3.5 million tests per week at minimum before reopening.

Jeremy Konyndyk, a former Obama administration official who oversaw the U.S. response to international disasters, noted that the federal government’s strategy doesn’t offer any data, metrics or operational specifics by which to measure the success of the plan. 

“Try to find a target figure for testing in it. There’s nothing. No data. No metrics. No targets,” he tweeted.

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