• Military
• WMD
• Intelligence

• Security Menu                     

• Systems
• Industry
• Operations
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Space

Coronavirus Testing in US Falls for 1st Time, Data Show

By VOA News August 15, 2020

The number of confirmed coronavirus tests conducted in the U.S. each day has fallen for the first time, despite calls from some public health and federal officials to significantly ramp up testing in the U.S., as it continues to lead the world in infections and COVID-19 deaths.

Figures from the COVID Tracking Project, which describes itself as "a collaborative volunteer-run effort" to track the outbreak in the country, show that reported daily tests have trended lower for much of the past two weeks.

Statistics from the project, a widely-used source of information by the White House and others, show about 733,000 people in the U.S. have been tested daily in August, fewer than some 750,000 the month before. The seven-day average plummeted to 709,000 on Monday before inching higher at the end of the week.

The decline, which occurred after months of increases in testing, may be linked to fewer people seeking tests as confirmed cases have leveled off following spikes this summer and people opting out of testing due to long wait times and delays in getting results.

As of Saturday, there were more than 21 million COVID-19 cases worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 5.3 million cases were in the U.S., followed only by Brazil, with 3.2 million.

"I think it's fair to say we really have not distinguished ourselves in a positive way by how we responded to the crisis when it was upon us," U.S. Senator Mitt Romney said Friday. "And the proof of the pudding of that is simply that we have five percent of the world's population but 25 percent of the world's deaths due to COVID-19," the Republican senator from Utah added in an interview with the Sutherland Institute, a conservative public policy think tank located in Salt Lake City.

In South Korea, more stringent social distancing restrictions were announced Saturday in Seoul and surrounding areas, where coronavirus cases have surged following successful efforts contain its spread.

Beginning Sunday, nightclubs, movie theaters and other high-risk places will be closed if they do not enforce preventive measures.

In Spain, dozens of people in Barcelona's Torre Baro community were tested for COVID-19 Saturday after a spike in cases in the working-class neighborhood. Health officials hope to identify asymptomatic cases in hard-hit areas to break any chains of transmission.

Also, in Italy, the cruise ship MSC Grandiosa will begin a voyage to the Mediterranean on Sunday, after it and four other cruise ships were idled by the coronavirus pandemic in Civitavecchia, one of the world's busiest ports.

The five ships can hold a total of 26,000 people. The four other ships will also resume operations soon, positioning Italy as the epicenter of an effort to resume cruises worldwide.