While he threatened to skip them, Coronavirus briefings are back – for now, at least. This, after President Trump tweeted over the weekend about them being a waste of his time. Still, it was a close call – as yesterday’s event was scheduled, cancelled... and then rescheduled.
Once at the podium, Mr. Trump repeated his earlier announcement about wider testing and also, Dr. Deborah Birx outlined the taskforce’s new guidelines for state testing. Trump said the US has carried out 5.4m tests, more than double any other country. Testing czar Adm. Brett Giroir also laid out the strategy, which hopes to move toward relaxing coronavirus restrictions and reopening their economies.
As for the testing, Trump invited executives of several companies to join him at the briefing, including those from Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Quest Diagnostics and U.S. Cotton. The executives reported progress in developing coronavirus tests and establishing drive-up testing sites. For example, CVS expects to have 1,000 testing locations that can conduct 1.5-million tests per month up and running by the end of May.
Where does the United States stand with COVID-19? At last check, there are more than 988-thousand cases across the United States – with just over 56-thousand patients succumbing to the illness – though more than 111-thousand have recovered. Globally, the numbers remains at just over 3-million people infected by the virus – with more than 211-thousand dead. On the plus side, more than 894-thousand have recovered.
Source: White House