Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) on Wednesday slammed the Trump administration for planning to end its support for several COVID-19 testing sites around the country at the end of the month.
TPM broke the news Tuesday that 13 COVID-19 testing sites that had received support from the federal government — including seven in Texas — would lose that support after June 30.
“The pandemic is clearly getting worse in states nationwide—and instead of trying harder to stop it, President Trump is apparently trying harder to hide it,” said Murray, the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
“It’s completely unacceptable that while billions in federal dollars Congress passed to support testing sit unspent, this Administration is closing testing sites in states where new COVID-19 cases are rapidly on the rise,” Murray added. “The President should reverse this clearly counterproductive step immediately.”
HHS assistant secretary and “testing czar” Brett Giroir told reporters Wednesday that the testing sites were “transitioning to state control and state funding.”
On the same press call, HHS spokesperson Michael Caputo exploded at the assembled journalists over their reporting on the testing sites.
