After his own failures led to testing shortages that worsened this crisis, Trump is now ignoring pleas from states for help and putting all the responsibility on them to ramp up testing.

Dr. Fauci said that our economy will not recover until we get the coronavirus under control, and the federal government needs to help states ramp up testing.

FAUCI: “Unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen.”

FACUI: “What we need to do is make a better connectivity with the tests that are available as well as the capacity that in some cases is not used… We know it’s a problem and it was just mentioned, there are things that are obstacles in the way, that George, we need a partnership between the federal government and the local people, including the governors, to help them get to things that they maybe not have any access to.”

Experts warn that the U.S. will need to dramatically scale up testing in order to contain the spread of the virus and safely reopen the country.

Wall Street Journal: “Public health experts say fast, widespread testing is a key requirement for safely reopening businesses and returning to something close to normal life, because it would allow officials to detect new cases quickly and stem outbreaks.”

ABC News: “With President Donald Trump saying he wants to lift stay-at-home novel coronavirus orders and open up parts of the country, more than 45 economists, social scientists, lawyers and ethicists say there’s a growing consensus pointing to a major step necessary to put Americans back to work: dramatically upscaling testing.”

States and businesses are warning Trump that they can’t safely reopen the economy without radically increasing testing, and are pleading for help.

Washington Post: “With the number of the covid-19 tests hovering at an average of 146,000 a day, businesses leaders and state officials are warning the Trump administration that they cannot safely reopen the economy without radically increasing the number of available tests — perhaps into the millions a day — and that won’t happen without a greater coordinating role by the federal government.”

Instead of doing more to help, Trump is putting all the responsibility on to states after his failures led to shortages, backlogs, and faulty testing.

TRUMP: “Testing is a local thing.”

Wall Street Journal: “Amid efforts to expand coronavirus testing, laboratory operators and state health officials are navigating a thicket of supply shortages, widespread test backlogs, unexpected snafus and unreliable results, often with no referee—prolonging the national crisis.”

Associated Press: “But more than a month after he declared, ‘Anybody who wants a test, can get a test,’ the reality has been much different. People report being unable to get tested. Labs and public officials say critical supply shortages are making it impossible to increase testing to the levels experts say is necessary to keep the virus in check… The plan pushes responsibility for testing onto states.”