Giroir says the response times for coronavirus tests are still too long in the U.S.

“I started by saying that we will never be happy with the tests until we have response times within 24 hours and I would be happy with point of care tests everywhere. We are not there yet. We are doing everything we can to do that.” Admiral Brett Giroir told CNN’s Jake Tapper about “State of the Union”.

Giroir’s comments come as multiple states grapple with a large number of cases of the virus, and as some states, labs and public health departments report that response times for diagnostic tests have slowed down. Health officials warned that the long delays Americans are experiencing across the country in obtaining the Covid-19 test results are problematic.

The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, said last week that such a delay “undermines the value of the test, because you do the test to find out who carries the virus and then quickly isolate them so you don’t not. extend. “

Giroir said Sunday that more than 54 million tests have been conducted so far and 770,000 are performed daily, representing a “140-fold increase in response terms.”

About a quarter of the tests are point-of-care, meaning that doctor’s offices or clinics can collect samples from patients using swabs and quickly analyze the samples without having to transport them to specialized laboratories, with a response time of 15 minutes and another A quarter is done in local hospitals and laboratories, with a general change of 24 hours, according to Giroir.

“The delays most people talk about occur in large commercial laboratories that perform about half the tests in our country,” he said, adding that the average response time is about 4.27 days.

“I follow it that morning and that afternoon, I know exactly when it was ordered and when it turned out,” he said. “We are trying to tear that down.”

Giroir also said that last week, group testing was authorized at Quest and LabCorp, which will help “improve efficiency.” Surge tests are also being added to “various cities where there are outbreaks,” and point-of-care tests are increasing in nursing homes, she said.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are increasingly confident that the Trump administration is moving to support $ 25 billion in additional funding for Covid-19 testing and contact tracing. The White House had initially delayed the Republican Party’s efforts to increase federal funding for the tests.

This story has been updated with additional comments from Admiral Brett Giroir on “State of the Union”.