Trump expects to double testing capacity, Texas announces plans to reopen
On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott announced some non-essential businesses will reopen on Friday, when the state’s stay-at-home order is set to expire.
Texas, like many other states, is taking a phased approach to reopening. President Trump has been all but silent in showing his support to get the economy up and running again.
In a tweet Tuesday morning, the president wrote, “Texas to open businesses in phases beginning Friday. Great job being done by @GregAbbott_T.”
Health experts continue to voice concerns that states are opening with haste, citing positive cases will spike due to insufficient testing and contact tracing efforts.
“An exit strategy, as we call this, is sort of difficult to suppose right now,” said Rebecca Fischer, infectious disease epidemiologist at Texas A&M University School of Public Health.”
“The risk being that as soon as we lift restrictions, whatever that strategy is, if it’s gradual or tiered or certain sectors of the economy or population are released first, we can certainly expect to see a spike in cases. What we want to make sure is that we’re far enough into the tail end of the epidemic that that bump will be minor and it won’t wind up shutting down the economy again,” Fischer said.
President Trump, however, announced testing would increase dramatically in May to support the administration’s new guidelines to liberate businesses and get Americans back to work. Approximately 4 million tests were conducted in April.
According to top retailers like Walmart and CVS, increased drive-through testing locations will soon become available, specifically in underserved communities and for employers. These top leaders ensured the rate of testing and production of medical supplies is increasing to meet the needs of Americans.
“We want to get our country open. Testing is not going to be a problem at all,” said Trump in his press briefing Monday evening.
“On Saturday alone, more than 200,000 test results were reported, which is a gigantic number — bigger than any country anywhere in the world for a much longer period of time; a number that is an increase earlier in the month when we tested roughly less than 100,000 a day. So we much more than doubled it, and that will be doubling again very shortly.”
Photo Credit: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour
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If they do a finger prick fine. No one is going to stick a swab up my nose