The U. S. federal government The U. S. government plans to finalize investment for several coronavirus testing sites this Friday, according to NPR. This means that several sites across the country will have to close. Many others will have to transfer to the state to remain open.
The news may have come at a worse time. The peak of the pandemic is rapidly coming to the United States. More than 3000 cases were reported in the country in just 24 hours. press.
“Many network test sites (CBTS) are not closing, but are switching to state-run sites around April 10,” a spokesperson for the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services told NPR. (HHS).
But state investment may not be enough.
“I’m understandably disappointed that materials and the federal contract for lab testing are ending as we move into southeastern Pennsylvania,” Valerie Arkoosh, chairwoman of the County Commission in suburban Philadelphia, told NPR.
HHS says the move aims to give the state more “flexibility and autonomy to manage and operate control sites,” while prioritizing the expressed wishes of their communities.
The news comes after US President Donald Trump on Tuesday shed the role of legal overseeing the $2 trillion coronavirus package through Inspector General Glenn Fine, undermining accountability and oversight of the distribution of a large monetary package.
This provoked the ire of the opposition.
“President Trump is abusing the coronavirus pandemic to eliminate honest and independent public servants because they are willing to speak out about the facts by force and because he is obviously afraid of strict oversight,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Schumer said in a reaction to Fine’s withdrawal.
Trump was also HHS senior deputy inspector general Christi Grimm.
“Another file!” Trump wrote in a tweet Tuesday, criticizing a report recently released through Grimm that showed local hospitals were unprepared to fight the pandemic.