Fauci contradicts Trump, says US will do ‘more testing, not less’ for COVID-19

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, contradicted President Trump on Tuesday during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Fauci said that the coronavirus task force wasn’t directed to slow down testing and that the government instead would be ramping up tests.

“None of us have ever been told to slow down on testing. … In fact, we will be doing more testing,” Fauci said, according to The Washington Post.

President Trump suggested that the U.S. was doing too much testing after White House officials downplayed his earlier remarks that the country should “slow down” testing.

In a video posted to Twitter, Scripps reporter Joe St. George asks Trump whether he requested a slowdown in coronavirus testing. Trump does not directly answer the question.

“If it did slow down, frankly, I think we’re way ahead of ourselves, if you want to know the truth,” Trump replies. “We’ve done too good of a job.”

Trump first made the comments during a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, saying that he directed a slowdown in testing, The New York Post reported.

“I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down please.’ They test and they test,” Trump said, according to the publication.

Trump took to Twitter Tuesday to again suggest that the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country is due to testing.

More than 2.3 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus have been reported in the U.S., along with 120,000 deaths, as of June 23, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. is the country with the most confirmed cases and deaths in the world.

“Cases are going up in the U.S. because we are testing far more than any other country, and ever expanding,” he tweeted. “With smaller testing we would show fewer cases!”

This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 12:03 PM with the headline "Fauci contradicts Trump, says US will do ‘more testing, not less’ for COVID-19."