U.S. Is Lagging in Coronavirus Tests, and It’s Not Even Close
The government is behind schedule, risking missed cases, more infections and an outbreak that will be bigger than it needed to be.
The U.S. can;t fight an epidemic it can’t diagnose.
Photographer: Michael Nagle/BloombergIf you look only at a list of confirmed novel coronavirus cases, you wouldn’t think the U.S. was doing badly. Eight other countries currently have more infections, and some have many more.
Don’t cheer just yet. The lower case count doesn’t mean Americans are doing a better job of containing the virus; rather, it reflects the fact that the U.S. is badly behind in its ability to test people. The Centers for Disease Control stopped disclosing how many people it has tested as of Monday, but an analysis by The Atlantic could only confirm 1,895 tests. Switzerland, a country with fewer residents than New Jersey, has tested nearly twice as many people. The U.K., which has far fewer cases, has tested over 20,000. This gap is particularly worrisome given evidence of community spread in a number of different states and a high death count, both of which suggest the number of cases will jump as more tests are conducted.