NOTE: This post has been updated to reflect the accurate number of positive Covid-19 tests in the USA as of noon, March 13. Data provided by the CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.
And while the lawmaker from New York City could be using her public appearances to calm Americans, she’s chosen to play politics — as usual.
“South Korea has up to 10,000 tests per day,” Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier.
“They’ve been able to provide tests to any single person that wants it, and here people are scrambling. It almost seems like the more wealthy and powerful you are, the more able you are to access a test. But the rougher road you’ve got here, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to access health care. That’s exactly a recipe for disaster in a pandemic,” she said, fanning the flames of panic.
And, as usual, there’s no evidence at all to back up AOC’s claims.
But the virus began spreading in South Korea months ago. In the latter stages of the spread, doctors there were testing more than 10,000 people daily and the country has tested more than 235,000 people, the New York Times reported.
So far, 1629 people in the U.S. have tested positive for the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. That number will skyrocket in coming days, just as it did in Asian countries.
On Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers that the health system isn’t “geared to what we need right now.”
“It is … failing, let’s admit it,” Dr. Fauci said. “The way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes, but we’re not.”
But on Friday, he said the system is getting up to speed quickly.
“Let’s look ahead, and I believe what we’re hearing at the task force that we are now getting into that phase where we’ll be able to really scale it up a lot. I think in the next week or so, you’re going to see an acceleration of availability of tests,” Dr. Fauci said.
“Right now as I’ve mentioned many times and I’ll stick by it, early on, the way the system was designed, as good a system as it was, it was not a design to approach that broad blanket testing. We’re on our way to that now, and we’ll be able to do it relatively soon,” the doctor said.
