COVID19 Update - Day 112

US Tests: 32,206,245

US Cases: 2,621,831

US Deaths: 120,336

Worldwide Cases: 10,434,835

Worldwide Deaths: 509,779

Instead of criticizing Trump, let's try to put the best possible spin on his handling of the pandemic:

“The federal government is not ending funding or support for COVID-19 testing sites,” Giroir said last week. 

But the funding and support which remains in place is very limited. Out of 67,000 pharmacies in the U.S., HHS is extending direct support to 600 of them. 

“The Trump Administration will continue to fully support the public health needs of all states as they respond to recent increases in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations,” Giroir said in a Tuesday statement. “To maintain or increase our COVID-19 testing footprint, especially in areas of high social vulnerability, we are extending this partnership through August 2020.”

Joe Goode, a CVS spokesman, told TPM that the drugstore chain had set up 1,400 testing sites without help from HHS. 

Dr. Bob Kocher, a member of California’s coronavirus testing task force and an adjunct professor of medicine at Stanford, told TPM that California had around 750 sample-collection sites for COVID-19 tests. 

“600 sites in America does seem like a very small number given the sites that there are to collect samples — certainly every hospital can do it, every urgent care facility can do it,” Kocher said.  

The extent of the federal help also falls far short of the 1 million tests per day number that experts say would provide adequate testing for the U.S. population. HHS told TPM that as of June 25, its community-based testing program had performed a total of 1,021,161 tests since the program’s inception in March.

Think about that for a minute.  HHS is priding itself on its level of support for coronavirus testing, because it is support 600 of the 67,000 pharmacies in the U.S.

Meanwhile a single pharmacy chain, CVS, has set up 1,400 sites all by itself.

And again I want to emphasize: This is the BEST thing one can say about the administration's handling of a pandemic which has been raging for nearly 4 months.