WHITE HOUSE – As the U.S. confirmed its 19th coronavirus death, top Trump administration officials said Saturday that they were ramping up the production and distribution of tests.
The number of infections in America rose to nearly 400, scattered across about half of the U.S. states, with Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota and Nebraska confirming their first cases and two deaths reported in Florida.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn briefed reporters at the White House, rejecting criticism from some health experts that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has wasted valuable time in not making tests available sooner, compared with countries like South Korea and Germany.
Hahn said the U.S. had tested 5,861 specimens to date, and that 48 U.S. states were set up to verify public lab testing. Maine and West Virginia were the only ones still getting the tests up and running.
Hahn said 1.1 million coronavirus tests had now been shipped to nonpublic health labs, and that an additional 4 million were expected to be shipped out by the end of next week, with a focus on areas of the U.S. that have been particularly hard hit, such as Washington state and California on the West Coast.
South Korea has tested more than 179,000 people.
Asked about President Donald Trump’s remark Friday that coronavirus testing was available for any American who wanted it, Azar sought to clarify the issue, saying that any American whose doctor recommended he or she needed a test would soon be able to get one.
Hahn said: “We are scaling up to meet the demand that we could potentially see.”
Avoid crowds, use caution
Asked about the president and others holding large campaign rallies, Azar said that in general, he would advise older adults and people of all ages with severe underlying health conditions to avoid crowds and large gatherings and to exercise caution. He said the risk posed by coronavirus to most Americans was low.
The White House response came as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency Saturday, with the number of confirmed cases in his state soaring to 76.
China, the source of the coronavirus outbreak that has spread around the world, has confirmed 99 new infections and at least 25 deaths since Friday.
The threat appeared to be waning in China, where the contagion erupted in December.
The World Health Organization said earlier this week that there were about 17 times as many new cases being reported outside China rather than inside China itself.
The outbreak has forced the U.N. to ask nine countries to delay the rotation of their peacekeeping troops by three months.
Maintaining strength
Nick Birnback, a U.N. peacekeeping spokesman, said the delay was requested “to maintain operational strength and execute their mandated tasks.”
The countries delaying the rotation of their forces at U.N. missions were Cambodia, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Nepal, South Korea and Thailand.
Worldwide, the number of coronavirus infections Saturday topped 100,000 while the death toll was nearly 3,500.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called on all countries to make containment their highest priority, urging them to find, test, isolate and care for every case.
Fern Robinson, Wayne Lee and Megan Duzor contributed to this report.
