U.S. performs more than one million coronavirus tests in a day

Medical staff took blood for testing for the new coronavirus. /VCG Image

The United States on Saturday carried out more than one million coronavirus diagnostic tests setting a one-day record for numbers of tests performed.

According to statistics from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run initiative to track the pandemic, the U.S. performed 1,061,411 tests.

Despite this milestone, various experts argue that the country needs six million to 10 million tests a day to bring outbreaks under control.

This milestone comes in the wake of a drop in the number of tests across the country. An average of 650,000 people were tested a day in the week ended September 13, down from a high of more than 800,000 people a day in late July.

In March, U.S. President Donald Trump said "anyone who wants a test, gets a test."

However, one of the challenges to that declaration is a reliance by laboratories on automated testing equipment which locks them into using proprietary chemical kits and other tools made by a handful of manufacturers.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed emergency use authorization to a number of saliva tests, which do not need swabs and use readily available reagents.

The U.S. has also permitted pooled testing, a method that tests samples from many people at a go and can expand testing capacity.

The U.S. is the worst-affected country by the coronavirus globally as it has recorded more than 6.7 million infections and registered nearly 200,000 deaths.

(With input from agencies)