WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) announced they have joined colleagues in a letter to Vice President Pence urging the Coronavirus Task Force to direct HHS and FEMA to conduct a national inventory of the country’s COVID-19 diagnostic test supply, publicly release comprehensive data on testing results, and provide a detailed plan and timeline for addressing future shortages and gaps in the testing supply chain.
“Over three weeks after President Trump declared the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency, we continue to hear from our states and Tribal Nations about the lack of supplies and testing kits to diagnose our constituents for the coronavirus,” wrote the Senators. “Widespread diagnostic testing is crucial to controlling the COVID-19 outbreak. In the short term, quickly obtaining test results for hospitalized patients allows hospitals to preserve supplies of PPE and prevents unnecessary quarantines of front-line health care workers and first responders. We urge you to promptly develop a national, real-time, public-facing inventory of COVID-19 diagnostic tests and results. This resource will provide the transparency that our states and Tribal Nations need to anticipate the national testing supply chain and the information that the federal government needs to anticipate and proactively address any testing shortages.”
Read the Senators’ full letter here.
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