WASHINGTON — Many health experts are complaining that America's slow response to the pandemic has cost us valuable time. Of particular concern has been the test kits and the continuing tight limits on people who qualify for testing.
D.C.'s Department of Forensic Sciences said its testing is up and running, and that it currently has enough kits on hand, but it is asking the CDC for more.
"We have two kits," Director Jenifer Smith said. "There are many reactions in that kit. So that's where we get a little confusion. So we have enough to test about 100 individuals."
But a D.C. woman complained on Facebook that despite having fever and chills and having traveled through South Korea, the Health Department told her repeatedly she did not meet the guidelines for testing. After the situation was raised with the Mayor, she did end up getting tested, and the test came back negative.
CBS News medical consultant Dr. David Agus said many doctors are having trouble. "There certainly are barriers for doctors to get patients tested. And I've seen it and I'm getting calls both from doctors and governors across the country," he said.
Federal officials said the tests are going out to labs. "1.1 million tests have been shipped out to public health laboratories and private labs and hospitals. At this time, another one million tests are available to fill orders or are being shipped," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said.
But according to the CDC's own website, just over 5,000 people have been tested in the US. Compare that to South Korea, where doctors are testing more than 10,000 people a day, according to the South Korean CDC.
Epidemiologists say it's hard to contain the virus when you don't know where it is. "What we need now is all the components of the test, and people who can do the test, out there. The more we test, the more knowledge we have, the more we're going to be able to stop the spread of this virus," Agus said.
The key here is trying to flatten the curve, to slow the exponential growth of patients. Doctors say too many patients too quickly could overwhelm the health system's ability to help them.
"People always say, the flu does this, the flu does that. The flu has a mortality of 0.1 percent. This has a mortality of ten times that," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told a Congressional committee on Wednesday.
Medstar Washington Hospital Center is the second-largest hospital in the region – and a spokeswoman there just told us it has yet to receive any test kits.