by Kara Machowski
For Texans, drive-up testing has come as a God send. One of the states that was hit the hardest, Texas was also one the first to secure drive up testing sites. For a little while Texans were able to breathe a sigh of relief as the state heard their cries for help and testing, implemented a lock-down and saw their coronavirus case numbers level out and even began to drop. With over 115,000 current cases, Texas reported a new record daily average on Tuesday of over 5,000 confirmed cases --in one day.
The reopening in mid-May was met with much hesitation from both the state, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens. In the last week cases all over the country have begun to rise, 13 states saw a record breaking number of positive cases on Monday, and Texas is seeing a large spike along with concerning positive cases in Arizona and Florida as well as Oklahoma, where the president's last rally (and first since the coronavirus) was held.
On Tuesday it was announced that the Trump administration plans to end funding for 13 testing sites in 5 states by the end of the month, and they aren't planning to stop there. They're looking at more ways to roll back on coronavirus testing post the president's remarks on Saturday where he shouted to his audience in Tulsa;
"Here's the bad thing; when you do testing to that (our) extent, you're going to find more people, more cases,"
"I said to my people to SLOW-IT-DOWN please."
On Monday the President confirmed when questioned if he was kidding about slowing down testing he stated that; "I don't kid, let me be very clear," and has repeatedly stated that "America is doing 'too good a job' with testing", suggesting that he's unhappy with the uptick in testing and relaying of more cases.
The Trump administration plans to end funding for a number of coronavirus testing sites in Dallas by June 30th, which concerns Rocky Vaz, the director of emergency management for the city of Dallas.
“Cases are continuing to rise in Dallas County, and we want to continue with the testing,” Vaz confessed to TPN.
The administration attempted to slow down testing in April as well by ending governmental support for testing sites. However, the move was met with public outcry and the order was reversed
This move reflects the current deficit, as the Trump administration's projected FY 2020 deficit at $1.02 trillion from Obama's $400-500 billion yearly deficit, and 2021 deficit is now estimated to be $4.829 trillion due to the coronavirus pandemic. The administration is continuously looking for ways to deflect any federal governmental spending by relaying the costs to the states, as done in the beginning of the pandemic by telling states they would need to acquire their own medical supplies.
On Tuesday morning the president tweeted how he opposed the amount of testing while passing the order to end testing for those 13 testing sites.
The president has suggested numerous times during the pandemic that he would end funding to Democratic states whose leaders gave him a hard time about coronavirus medical supplies and testing. Now he's now picking a fight with his Republican and swing states, which could ultimately backfire as cases will inevitably rise and certain states like Florida are on the pathway to becoming to next epicenter, resulting in an unforeseen number of deaths.
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