Fauci: Neither Trump nor CDC to blame for testing delay

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday that the blame for the slow pace of testing for coronavirus in the U.S. does not lie with either President Trump or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fauci told Hugh Hewitt on “The Hugh Hewitt” show that a “technical glitch” resulted in the delay in production of usable tests in the U.S., something Fauci prescribed to random error.

“It was a complicated series of multiple things that conflated that just, you know, went the wrong way. One of them was a technical glitch that slowed things down in the beginning. Nobody’s fault. There wasn’t any bad guys there. It just happened,” Fauci said.

“Was the glitch or anything about the production of the test President Trump’s fault?” Hewitt responded. “Or actually, let me put it more broadly, would every president have run into the same problem?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Fauci replied. “This has nothing to do with anybody’s fault, certainly not the president’s fault.”

His comments come as the U.S. health care system and the Trump administration have faced criticism over the low numbers of coronavirus tests being performed throughout the country as thousands of Americans have confirmed cases of the disease and thousands more have self-quarantined or practiced forms of social distancing to avoid spreading it further.

The coronavirus outbreak has infected more than 180,000 globally, killing thousands. Other countries dealing with the disease, such as South Korea, have received praise for their efforts to provide testing to residents, including drive-thru tests implemented in Seoul and other cities.