Dr. Tony Fauci just briefed the press on testing and it went very well:
I can report that right now, Dr. Anthony Fauci is making complete sense.
— Stephen Quinn (@CBCStephenQuinn) April 17, 2020
He was responding to criticism from earlier today where Dems said there weren’t enough tests and that President Trump needed to do more:
Dr. Fauci says Senate Dems asked on call today if there were enough tests, he says he'll clarify that answer in this briefing now https://t.co/uctEPTU7Kj
— Michaela Ross (@michaelarossa) April 17, 2020
Part of what Dr. Fauci did was ratchet down the emotions, saying Dems asked “really reasonable questions”:
"Really reasonable questions, questions that are on the mind of a number of people," is how Fauci describes questions on testing Senate Dems asked Pence & task force today.
One of those questioners: an infuriated @SenAngusKing who told Pence admin was failing to do its duty.
— Meredith Lee (@meredithllee) April 17, 2020
His first point was that there are communication issues and they will work to better align the what’s available with what’s needed:
Fauci: There is existing testing capacity that hasn’t been connected to the demand the country has.
“With better communications, we can get tests out there.”
Key: “I believe there will be enough tests to take this country safely through Phase One” #coronavirus @WUSA9
— Mike Valerio (@MikevWUSA) April 17, 2020
He made it clear that what happened in the past is not what’s happening now:
"No doubt earlier we had a problem" Fauci said, on testing. "Many of those have already been corrected and others of those will be corrected""We believe that with better communications we will be able to make that happen," he says,refers to sharing capacity to relieve shortages https://t.co/GN4Za8xXfV
— Michaela Ross (@michaelarossa) April 17, 2020
And he said “there will be enough tests to take this country safely to phase one,” as in, begin to open up the economy:
“For what we need in the first phase, we will have and there will be enough treats to take this country safely to phase one.” Dr. Fauci. Bingo. The government said what it needed and the private sector produced it in record time, avoiding exponentially greater catastrophe.
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) April 17, 2020
He also made the point that it’s much more than just testing and that we shouldn’t only focus on that:
Fauci: “The emphasis we’ve been hearing is that testing is everything and it isn’t.”
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) April 17, 2020
Hey, even Joe Scarborough was happy with the presentation:
It’s really good to hear Dr. Fauci’s update.
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) April 17, 2020
Watch a clip here:
Dr. Fauci explains the two different types of #coronavirus tests: One that tests whether a person is infected, and another that tests if someone was previously infected. https://t.co/eOGI4nbPU4 pic.twitter.com/iizBPg7Tss
— KPIX 5 (@KPIXtv) April 17, 2020
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