President Trump touted this week that the United States' testing has the "greatest capacity in the world," and repeatedly has said that every American who wants a coronavirus test can get one. In Iowa, that isn't the reality.
Several White House officials have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week, and every person who has close contact with the president and vice president is tested. Gov. Kim Reynolds is one of the individuals who came into close contact with Mike Pence and Trump during a visit to Washington last week. She is now in a modified quarantine, getting tested for the disease each day. But the same capacity for mass testing, and testing in the workplace, is not a reality for millions of Americans and Iowans returning to work in the coming days. In her press briefing today, Reynolds admitted that testing capacity is not at the promised 5,000 a day under TestIowa and the state lab.
"We're opening the parameters now that we have the validation done, so that's one opportunity," said Reynolds. "As we continue to build out and we get to a place where we are testing health care workers, essential workers, frontline workers, first responders, there will become a time I believe where we will continue to open it up and if Iowans want to get a test, they'll be able to do that. So that's kind of the approach that we're taking. We're probably not quite there yet."
TestIowa, which is a COVID-19 mass testing program run by several Utah tech companies, just became validated by the state lab this week. It's been three weeks since the state signed a no-bid $26 million contract with the companies to provide testing to Iowans. So far, 400 TestIowa samples have been spoiled, and the result waiting period for some Iowans has been more than a week. Still, Reynolds said she is pleased with how the program is going.
"We are continuing to enhance the process daily...the data has been incredibly helpful and certainly will be helpful as we address COVID-19 for the long-term," said Reynolds.