Former President Barack Obama again criticized President Donald Trump on Wednesday via social media for failing to enact “robust” coronavirus testing in the United States.
Obama shared an article from the New York Times on Twitter and argued social discounting policies could not be relaxed until more testing was available.
“[I]n order to shift off current policies, the key will be a robust system of testing and monitoring – something we have yet to put in place nationwide,” Obama wrote:
It’s unclear exactly what President Obama seeks with his running commentary, but the United States has already dramatically boosted the number of tests.
President Trump announced Tuesday the country has performed 1.87 million tests for the coronavirus.
“America continues to perform more tests than any other nation in the world,” he said.
He reminded reporters the more tests that were conducted meant higher numbers of cases in the United States than other countries.
“I know for a fact that they have far more cases than we do, but they don’t report them,” Trump said, referring to other large countries.
Officials indicate coronavirus antibody tests are also key to reopening the economy, as workers can return to their jobs with an immunity to the virus.
Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday that “tens of millions” of antibody tests would be available “very very soon.”
On Fox News on Wednesday, Giroir said that the federal government would announce what coronavirus antibody tests were approved for use.
“You’ll be hearing from us very shortly, probably in the next week to give the public assurance of which ones really work and don’t, and there’ll be a really national testing plan around these antibody tests as well,” he said.