Fauci Decries Testing System for Coronavirus in the US: ‘It Is a Failing’

The country’s top health officials offered a bleak assessment of the nation’s coronavirus testing capabilities.

“It is a failing,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said of the lack of easy access to testing for the virus.

During a House Oversight Committee hearing with the country’s top health officials, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.) asked whether the health system was set up to ensure Americans can get easily tested.

“The system is not really geared to what we need right now, what you are asking for,” Fauci said, adding, “That is a failing. It is a failing. Let’s admit it.”

He continued:

“The fact is the way the system was set up, is that the public health component — that Dr. Redfield was talking about — was a system where you put it out there in the public, and a physician asks for it, and you get it. The idea of anybody getting it easily, the way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes, but we’re not.”

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Fauci’s comments come as the lack of easy access to testing for the coronavirus has been roundly criticized.

After a briefing with health officials on Thursday, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) told CNN, “We are not where we need to be and not sure when we are going to get there” in regards to testing.

“We are flying blind,” he added.

While President Donald Trump