Mitt Romney: US Testing Record Is Nothing to Celebrate

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, on Tuesday rebuffed Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brett Giroir during a Senate hearing on the coronavirus, saying the country's testing record is "nothing to celebrate whatsoever."

Giroir appeared alongside President Donald Trump on Monday during a press conference, where the president touted the country's testing numbers, claiming to have performed more than South Korea, which was widely praised for how it responded to the outbreak.

"I understand politicians are going to frame data in a way that's most positive politically," Romney said during a hearing of the Senate HELP Committee, according to The Washington Post. "Of course, they don't expect that from admirals."

The senator added, "Yesterday, you celebrated that we had done more tests and more tests per capita even than South Korea. But you ignored the fact that they accomplished theirs at the beginning of the outbreak while we treaded water during February and March."

"So, partially as a result of that, they have 256 deaths, and we have almost 80,000 deaths. I find our testing record nothing to celebrate whatsoever. The fact is their test numbers are going down, down, down, down now is because they don't have the kind of outbreak we have."

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., added: "The key distinction between South Korea and the United States is not how many tests per capita over a certain amount of time we've done, but the fact that at the onset of this pandemic, South Korea was much more able to do a lot more tests per capita than we were."

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