US ‘nowhere near where it needs to be’ in tackling COVID-19: Obama-era Surgeon General Vivek Murthy

General view of a drive thru coronavirus testing site on April 18, 2020 in Springfield, Tennessee. (Photo by AFP)

Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says the country has been “a bit late” in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Obama-era official made the comment in an interview with Yahoo Finance on Saturday.

“Unfortunately, we were a bit late to recognize how bad this was as a country,” he said. “We have been late, also, when it comes to ramping up testing, which we desperately need. And we’re also still having trouble getting the materials, particularly the protective equipment that health care providers need. We’re making progress over the last month, but it’s unfortunately nowhere near where it needs to be if we want to feel safe to relax social distancing restrictions.”
The Trump administration’s highly criticized response to the novel coronavirus has resulted in confusion across the states with some implementing strict lockdowns and other going easy.

“What we really need both with testing and when it comes to the protective equipment is we do need the federal government to be more aggressive in stepping in and taking over the supply, the production, as well as the distribution piece of this,” Murthy said.
On February 27, President Donald Trump claimed in a news conference that the virus was “going to disappear.”

But Murthy  asserted that, “We do need a wartime production board like we saw with World War Two to ensure that we’re coordinating all levers within this country to respond to this unprecedented pandemic but that we’re also doing so in a way that’s accountable and that’s still having results.”