Unwinding the coronavirus testing breakdown When the first U.S. case of the novel coronavirus was confirmed, President Trump assured the American people that the situation was "totally under control." The president then spent nearly two months issuing confusing and contradictory signals — leaving the bureaucratic machine of the U.S. government to chart the course for the coronavirus response. On Jan. 31, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declared a "public health emergency," which triggered emergency testing protocols, increasing restrictions on which labs could make tests for the novel coronavirus. Any lab would be required to acquire an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA to perform testing for covid-19. The FDA granted the CDC the first EUA. The overall plan was simple. The CDC would use the science it had developed for the test, do the bulk of the testing, and distribute test kits to qualified state labs. This would safeguard against potential bad results and ensure an accurate count. But some labs had problems with the CDC test. By Feb. 12, the CDC announced that the test was providing inconclusive results. On Feb. 29, the FDA lifted restrictions on labs, issuing a new set of significantly less restrictive protocols. On March 3, the restrictions on who qualified for a test were dissolved. As of March 28, exactly four weeks after the FDA loosened the rules for testing, the United States still performed only 2,250 tests per million — two-thirds of what South Korea did almost three weeks earlier. (South Korea saw its first case the same day as the U.S.) These missteps went unmanaged, ignored by leaders at the highest level of government, allowing cases to go undetected and the virus to spread freely. Read the full story here and watch the video here. Sign up for The Post's Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked within the newsletter are free to access. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Did Trump offer experts to China? Former vice president took a big swing at President Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis during a virtual CNN town hall: "He, in addition to that, when we were talking about early on in this crisis, we said — I said, among others, that, you know, you should get into China, get our experts there, we have the best in the world, get them in so we know what's actually happening. There was no effort to do that. He didn't put any pressure on Xi. I guess because of his trade deal, which wasn't much of a deal." So we wondered: what did President Trump and the Trump administration do to gain access to China, and when did Biden say the United States should get experts into China? Biden's language is a bit imprecise, and it could be interpreted that he is speaking about the Trump administration making "no effort." His campaign says he was talking about Trump, as the sentence before and after referred to Trump. The administration at various levels sought access for CDC experts — and a senior administration official, speaking not for attribution, told the Fact Checker an offer to send staff was made at the presidential level. Whether Trump didn't "put pressure" on Xi behind the scenes remains unclear, though Trump's public comments and tweets do not indicate much pressure. Put simply, Biden could make a case that Trump's efforts to gain access for medical experts to China lacked vigor or were ineffectual; he cannot say there was no effort from the administration. As for being foresighted enough to make this case early on, Biden did not explicitly call for it until near the end of February, so that appears exaggerated. With more precision in his language, Biden would have a better case. We awarded Biden Three Pinocchios. For the full fact check, click here. Fact-checking in the time of coronavirus
The World Health Organization classified the rampant spread of misinformation about the novel coronavirus "an infodemic." This alliance fights against it. Led by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute, more than 100 fact checkers around the globe now contribute to a database of fact checks. With more than 3,000 fact checks from more than 70 countries translated into more than three dozen languages, the organization describes the effort as "the largest collaborative fact-checking project ever." We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @mmkelly22, @SarahCahlan) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. Analysis ● By Glenn Kessler and Salvador Rizzo ● Read more » | | | | Analysis ● By Meg Kelly, Sarah Cahlan and Elyse Samuels ● Read more » | | | | 
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