Defying the wishes of republican Senators, President Trump is blocking additional funds for coronavirus testing and contact tracing programs in the upcoming coronavirus relief funding package, reports the Washington Post.
Regarded by public health experts as a vital component in the effort to fight and control the spread of the coronavirus, testing and tracking helps to identify new hotspots and anticipate medical needs.
The Administration is also working to block funding to fight the coronavirus requested from the Department of Defense and the State Department both domestically and overseas.
According to the Post’s reporting, Senators want $25 billion allocated to states to fund testing and contact tracing. The White House has said it will put zero dollars to those efforts.
Trump has repeated claimed, illogically, that additional testing leads to additional COVID cases, when in fact testing has no bearing on the number of cases of the disease, just the awareness of the spread of the disease.