Pence says way Americans are tested for disease may be changed 'for years to come'

Vice President Mike Pence, who has led the White House task force on the coronavirus, says changes the Trump administration made in the middle of this crisis may forever change the way Americans are tested for infectious diseases.

In an interview recorded Friday with Just the News and CBN correspondent David Brody, Pence said the administration's intervention shifted COVID-19 testing predominantly from the Centers for Disease Control and state labs to include the private sector and rapid testing solutions, a move that sped testing and results. Those changes may be made more permanent, he suggested.

"The traditional manner of testing for any kind of infectious disease is that a person would receive a test it would be processed at either the CDC or state lab. And that was the old system that when the coronavirus struck America, our first came case came and emerged in this country in February," he said. 

"The President immediately tasked to pull together the vast resources of what are known as the commercial labs in this country, companies like Labcorp and Quest, Abbott Laboratories and others, the people that actually create the devices that do rapid tests. We brought a consortium together at the President's direction. And in very short order, we're literally at a place today, David, where we're testing more than 100,000 Americans a day. And we've developed all new testing format," he said, crediting a new rapid test kit by Abbott Laboratories that provides results in about 15 minutes.

The changes, he explained, broke a logjam at the traditional government labs and allowed for many more tests to be processed more quickly.

"The reality was there was there were always many test kits out there, but the ability to process them rapidly was what the President addressed when we brought the full power of the private sector together," Pence said. "And now as I said, more than 2 million tests are done, and we're going to continue to scale and increase the amount of testing during this epidemic, but also create a foundation for a new modern rapid testing system for Coronavirus and, and other diseases for years to come."

To learn more about Pence's work as head of the coronavirus, tune in Monday to Brody's extended interview with the vice president on CBN's 700 Club show.