Trump wants to block funding for coronavirus testing as death toll passes 140,000

Donald Trump is upending an already contentious battle for coronavirus relief funding, calling on Republicans to block funding intended to help states pay for coronavirus testing as and contact tracing to try to stop the spread of the virus, the Washington Post reported.

The lack of coronavirus testing capabilities has been a problem across the country since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, hampering early efforts to get head of the coronavirus outbreak before it spiraled out of control.

And while testing capabilities have since increased, there are still shortages, as well as long wait times for results — which is still making it hard if not impossible control the spread of the virus, months into the pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Now, Trump is urging Republicans to block funding for testing and contact tracing — and apparently angering them, as they already fear Trump’s failed coronavirus response could cause the party to lose its Senate majority.

The revelation that Trump wants to take away funding for states to test their residents comes after he said in June that he wanted to slow down testing for the virus.

“When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please,'” Trump said during a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 20.

Since that comment, Trump has continued to wrongly claim that the only reason cases of the virus are growing is because there is more testing to identify new cases.

In fact, the positivity rate of coronavirus testing is growing faster than the increase in tests.

The Trump administration’s insistence that states should not get any more money to handle coronavirus testing comes as more than 3.7 million Americans have tested positive for the virus, and more than 140,000 have died from it, according to data from the New York Times.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.