> The plan was always to expand testing, but you need a working test kit first. I'd like to call out the fact that the impediments to testing in the US were an

> The plan was always to expand testing, but you need a working test kit first. I'd like to call out the fact that the impediments to testing in the US were and are entirely bureaucratic in nature. The CDC publicly published a real-time RT-PCR protocol (including primer and probe sequences) at the end of January. Since that time, it has been entirely possible (from a technical standpoint) for any properly equipped lab to perform tests. By properly equipped, I mean BSL-2 with a real-time RT-PCR machine - this in not at all an uncommon setup. Other types of PCR machines would require making appropriate modifications to the protocol, but any lab that already does such work will posses the required expertise (seriously, this stuff is _trivial_ by academic standards). Entirely separate from technical ability to perform an assay is legal status with regard to testing human samples for diagnostic purposes. To that end, the FDA failed to approve any vendor-specific test kits in a timely manner. This is frankly ludicrous under the circumstances, as South Korea managed to approve and make available at least two different test kits in the same time frame - they even have drive-thru testing stations set up!