Trump urged to increase COVID-19 testing

Executives say the Trump administration must dramatically increase coronavirus testing before the public will be confident enough to return to work

US President Donald Trump’s task force urged him to increase COVID-19 testing. Picture: AFP

Banking and financial services executives told President Trump that his administration needed to dramatically increase the availability of coronavirus testing before the public would be confident enough to return to work, eat at restaurants or go shopping.

The push for more testing came in the first of four Wednesday phone calls that Mr Trump held with business executives on his newly formed task force to reopen the economy. The president has been focused on the topic amid increasingly dire economic data. Wednesday brought reports that retail sales and US industrial production dropped dramatically in March.

No potential dates for easing coronavirus restrictions were discussed, and no follow-up meeting was scheduled. The task force, known as the Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups, includes more than 200 business and political leaders, who have been divided into smaller groups based on their industry.

The people involved in the first call, which included executives from financial services, food and beverage, hospitality and retail industries, described current testing levels in the US as inadequate to effectively reopen the economy.

Some executives suggested that they were attempting to secure their own virus testing kits for employees and possibly customers as well.

Mr Trump also touted the potential of a saliva test to determine whether people had COVID-19, arguing that it would let companies get back to work faster. The CEOs voiced approval for this idea. The president said reopening the country would not mean the end of social distancing and that people might have to get used to wearing masks even after businesses reopened.

Mr Trump’s task force includes leaders from some of the country’s most prominent companies, including General Motors, Apple, McDonald’s, Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil and Lockheed Martin, as well as union representatives, professional sports commissioners and former politicians.

The president announced the formation of the groups during a Tuesday evening White House news conference in which he rattled off dozens of members of the task force.

Some of the chief executives whose names the president mentioned were caught off guard, people familiar with the matter said.

“CEOs of major brands were calling their heads of government affairs. ‘The president just said my name. Why?’” said a representative of a company whose CEO was named to Mr Trump’s task force.

In some cases, CEOs had been approached about getting on a call with the president and agreed, but had not been warned he would be announcing that they were on the task force.

Some of those CEOs have already “delegated it downward” — meaning any participation will be from government affairs people, not the executives themselves.

The purpose of the task force is twofold, according to White House officials: to solicit recommendations for how to open up parts of the US economy, and to respond to the economic damage already being inflicted by the outbreak.