As of Wednesday, the World Health Organization now calls the coronavirus a pandemic as politicians from Illinois demand that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention send more test kits to states.
“I will be personally on the phone with senior federal officials at the White House and elsewhere in the Executive Branch to continue to demand that we see a matching increase in tests,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker continued to mention Wednesday at his daily press conference.
Senator Dick Durbin is also calling on the CDC to send more tests as the "testing process is apparently coming to a stop," he said.
A couple who used to live in Chicago spoke to NBC 5 about their isolated state in Texas with coronavirus. Shelly and Charles Conlon said they came back from a cruise to Japan but said the CDC did not test everyone in quarantine.
Schaumburg Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi questioned the CDC's slow response in its distribution.
“You can’t give us assurance that the person who bungled the production process hasn’t been removed," Rep. Krishnamoorthi said. "Recovering from that misstep cost us precious weeks and now months.”
He said South Korea tests 300 times more people than the U.S.—even though both countries got coronavirus within a day of each other.
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“The CDC developed this test for the United States Public Health System," said CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield in response. "We did not develop this test for all of clinical medicine, the test for clinical medicine, we count on the private sector to work together with the FDA…"
The White House announced Wednesday afternoon that the CDC plans to send more than $17 million Illinois to help fight the coronavirus.
