WMT Walmart Inc

By Michael C. Bender 

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration is prepared to send all 50 states enough tests to screen at least 2% of residents for the new coronavirus, a senior administration official said Monday, with the aim of rapidly expanding supplies in the coming weeks as the nation's leaders look to reopen parts of the economy.

President Trump plans to give a news conference after 5 p.m. in which he is expected to discuss testing. The official said that testing 2% of each state's population was the minimum needed to maintain public health.

Mr. Trump met with heads of major retailers, pharmacy chains and testing labs on Monday, including Walmart Inc. and CVS Health Corp.

"Together we're accelerating testing for Americans and retail locations across the country," Mr. Trump said ahead of the news briefing. He said a particular point of emphasis was testing in African-American and Hispanic communities.

CVS Health Corp. said it would expand its coronavirus testing operations, offering self-swab tests at as many as 1,000 CVS Pharmacy parking lots and drive-through windows by the end of May, with the goal of processing up to 1.5 million tests a month. Smaller rival Walgreen Co. also said it is ramping up testing capacity.

The lack of widely available coronavirus tests has been a chief complaint from business leaders whom the Trump administration leaned on for economic advice. Mr. Trump told reporters on March 6 that anyone who wanted a test could get a test, a promise that remains unfulfilled.

About 5.4 million Americans have been tested for the virus so far, according to the COVID Tracking Project, or about 1.6% of the population. Laboratories across the U.S. are currently processing about one million tests a week, but public health experts say that testing still needs to be greatly expanded in most communities to quickly identify and isolate cases and move out of lockdowns safely.

One roadblock to scaling-up testing has been a lack of swabs and chemical reagents needed to collect patient samples, though those shortages are starting to ease, laboratory officials say.

In a briefing with reporters on Monday, senior administration officials said they have provided states with guidance to perform the necessary amount of Covid-19 testing. The administration was planning to publicize a strategy for nationwide testing on Monday, one official said.

That testing strategy was intended to provide states with guidance that could help determine when to ease social-distancing guidelines, an official said. Mr. Trump has said it is up to states to determine when to reopen local economies.

The administration was prepared to provide some states with enough kits to quadruple the number of coronavirus tests that have been performed to date, one senior administration official said, adding that "the hope is that by fall we've got so many tests that we're swimming in tests."

"When this whole thing started, I don't think anyone really appreciated how hard this was," the official said.

--Brianna Abbott contributed to this article.

Write to Michael C. Bender at Mike.Bender@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 27, 2020 17:26 ET (21:26 GMT)

Walmart (NYSE:WMT)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024

Walmart (NYSE:WMT)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024