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The United States set a record of carrying out over 1 million tests in a day, but the country needs 6-10 million tests a day to bring the COVID-19 under control, according to various experts.
The country performed 1,061,411 tests on Saturday (September 19), according to data from the COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the coronavirus.
The record comes after testing has fallen for several weeks.
The United States tested on an average of 650,000 people a day in the week ending September 13, down from a peak in late July of over 800,000 people a day.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, testing shortages have hampered efforts to curb the spread of the virus.
At one point during the summer, Houston residents lined up in cars and waited for hours for tests, even sleeping in their vehicles overnight. Miami saw similar lines.
Once tested, people might have to wait up to two weeks to learn if they have the virus, which has killed some 200,000 Americans and infected more than 6.7 million. Such delays defeat the purpose of trying to prevent further infections.
In March, President Donald Trump said "anyone who wants a test, gets a test." That goal has yet to be achieved.
At the heart of the crisis is a reliance by labs on automated testing equipment that locks them into using proprietary chemical kits and other tools made by a handful of manufacturers.
The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization to several saliva tests, which require no swabs and use readily available reagents.
The United States has also authorized pooled testing, a method that tests samples from several people at once and can expand testing capacity.
However, pooled testing is only more efficient in areas with limited outbreaks. In mid-September, 27 of 50 states had positive test rates above 5 percent, according to a Reuters analysis, including South Dakota at 17 percent.
The World Health Organization considers positive test rates of above 5 percent a matter of concern.
(REUTERS)
