President Trump on Thursday rebuffed concerns from Dr. Anthony Fauci that the country was behind with coronavirus testing, saying “I don’t agree with him.”
In an interview earlier Thursday, Fauci, an infectious disease specialist and respected member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, told Time Magazine he feared the US was not where it needed to be in terms of COVID-19 screening.
“We need to significantly ramp up not only the number of tests, but the capacity to perform them…” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said.
“I am not overly confident right now at all that we have what it takes to do that. We are doing better, and I think we are going to get there, but we are not there yet,” he added.
Asked about the comments during the White House coronavirus briefing, the president said the country was “very advanced in testing” despite just 1.4 percent of the population being tested.
“We’ve done very well in testing. We’ve tested far more than anybody else in the world,” Trump said.
“I don’t agree with him on that. I think we’re doing a great job on testing. If he said that, I don’t agree with him,” he added.
Fauci and Trump’s relationship has been strained since he was brought onto the taskforce — the president earlier this month boosting a tweet with the hashtag #FireFauci.
Comments