Question: The President recently stated at a rally in Oklahoma, “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people. You’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’” Do we have any evidence of testing slowing in the United States?

Answer: These remarks are concerning, regardless of whether they were made in jest or they do not reflect an actual policy shift. COVID-19 has killed more than 125,000 Americans and counting. Downplaying the case estimates in the United States by claiming they are merely the result of increased testing only serves to downplay the threat and severity of the epidemic. These remarks are DANGEROUS, regardless of whether they equate to an actual slow-down in testing. Included herein is some background on the remarks, and a more direct answer to your question.

Background: After the President’s remarks were widely reported, White House officials walked them back, with one official telling CBS news that they were made “in jest”, another telling CNN that they were “tongue-and-cheek”, and the Vice President telling Governors that they were merely a “passing observation.” Then, speaking with reporters on June 23rd, the President himself responded to a reporter’s question on the matter (see C-SPAN for full transcript):

Q: Mr. President, at that rally, when you said you asked your people to slow down testing, were you just kidding or do you have a plan to slow down testing?
A: I don’t kid….The reason we have more cases than other countries is because our testing is so much.

Additionally, as Politico reports, “In an interview with Scripps Networks, Trump did not deny asking his administration to curtail coronavirus testing and instead contended that “if we did slow it down, we wouldn’t show nearly as many cases.”” Given these statements, plus the ongoing concern about the economy, especially reopening in light of increasing cases, it would seem plausible that the President is interested in slowing testing down. So let’s look into whether there’s any evidence of such a slow down.

Evidence: First, we have the response of Dr. Fauci and three other government officials on the matter during Tuesday’s House hearing. In response to questions on testing, Dr. Fauci stated, “To my knowledge, none of us have ever been told to slow down on testing — that just is a fact. In fact, we will be doing more testing … not only testing to specifically identify people [and] identify, isolate, and contact-trace, but also much more surveillance.” That’s a positive. BUT…

On Wednesday, a day after the House hearing and the President’s “I don’t kid” remarks, the administration said that it would no longer directly fund 13 of its original coronavirus testing sites in five states — “funding and support for the sites in Illinois, New Jersey, Colorado and Pennsylvania as well as Texas would end June 30.” In response to concerns, Reuters reports that “U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brett Giroir said that he had spoken to leaders of the five states, who agreed “it was the appropriate time to transition” to other options. He said the states could use the more than $10 billion allocated last month to support testing to keep the sites open if they chose to.” So that’s concerning, but not tangible proof.

Let’s look at testing numbers themselves. As Figure 1 shows, testing in the United States (excluding NYS since it has conducted a huge proportion of tests over time) has been increasing over time, although the increase is at a slower pace in June as compared with May (see slope). So, we have evidence of a slow down of the testing ramp up… but not evidence of fewer tests themselves. We’ll need to keep monitoring the situation and holding our leaders accountable.

Figure 1. Daily Tests in the US (excluding New York) [data from covidtracking.com]