(Washington, D.C.) - U.S. Senator Patty Murray released the following statement in response to news that the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (HHS OIG) would audit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s efforts to produce and distribute COVID-19 lab test kits. The announcement from the HHS OIG comes after Senator Murray pressed for such an investigation from it last month.
“The Trump Administration’s continued issues in ramping up diagnostic testing have put people’s lives at risk, these delays just aren’t acceptable. We need answers and we need solutions, and I’m fighting to make sure we get both as quickly as possible. This investigation is an important step in shedding light on what went wrong here so we can make sure this never happens again.
“Unfortunately we are still way behind where we need to be when it comes to testing. I’m going to continue to hold President Trump accountable for the delays that put us so far behind, while laying out a roadmap for what we need to do to finally get back on track."
The news from HHS OIG comes as a new Democratic Policy and Communications Committee report released on Wednesday further underscores how the U.S. is still lagging behind other countries in testing and as experts make clear that hundreds of millions of tests will be necessary to safely ease social distancing.
In response to the Trump Administration’s failure to rapidly expand testing capacity for COVID-19, Senator Murray released a new policy white paper this week, “A Roadmap to Reopening by Ensuring a Speedy and Ubiquitous Lab Testing System (RESULTS)," which outlines Democrats’ agenda to quickly ramp up COVID-19 testing:
Senator Murray has been leading since the start of the COVID-19 crisis in pressing for action and accountability regarding diagnostic testing.
Timeline of Senator Murray’s efforts on diagnostic testing below.
Read Senator Murray’s white paper on expanding COVID-19 testing, Roadmap to RESULTS, HERE.
