'We Don't Have Enough Tests' | Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan On When Coronavirus Tests Will Be Available
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ/CBS) -- Gov. Larry Hogan addressed the concerns about the lack of coronavirus tests in Maryland as the number of positive COVID-19 patients in the state grew by almost 54% overnight.
"We're still having the issue of not enough tests," Hogan said Tuesday. "These numbers are coming in rather sporadically on a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour basis from private labs and from different places. That number is quite a spike, but it's due to the fact that more people are being tested and the fact that we now got community spread. The numbers are likely to be much, much higher the next time you see a report."
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Hogan said Maryland isn't the only state without enough test kits. States across the country are dealing with the lack of test kits and the federal government doesn't seem to have an answer.
Maryland is working to find its own solutions and push the feds to figure out testing solutions faster, the governor added.
There's been widespread criticism for the administration's inability to deliver a sufficient number of tests, but on Tuesday when President Donald Trump was asked how he grades himself in handling this crisis on a scale of 1 to 10, he said, "I'd rate it a 10."
Meanwhile, the Trump administration still can't say how many Americans have been tested for the virus, or how many tests have been administered.
"There is a number. I don't have that number," Admiral Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, said from the briefing podium.
Hogan said for right now only the people that need to get tested will get tested. He said he understands that people and panicked and would like to be tested but they don't want to overload the systems.
He said other states opened drive-thrus and testing facilities and then didn't have the ability to do the tests. He doesn't want that to happen in Maryland.
"We're working to make sure we can get people tested, but that we're getting a result," Hogan said. "We don't want people lined up, jamming in places to get a test that they can't get or that we can't process."
Maryland is trying to determine the capabilities of both public and private labs to see how they can significantly increase COVID-19 testing in the state.
"Ramping up the driver-thrus is a relatively easy part," Hogan said. "But we don't want to do it if we can't get the lab capability because we're just giving false hope and creating chaos in crisis."
For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Department's website or call 211. You can find all of WJZ's coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.
