Trump accused of not using $14bn for coronavirus testing and contact tracing

The Trump administration has still not used $14bn (£11.2bn) in funding for coronavirus contact test and tracing, according to senior Democrats.

In April, as part of a coronavirus relief bill, Congress passed legislation that awarded $25bn (£20bn) in funding for Covid-19 tracing and surveillance, split between the administration and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to NBC.

In a letter to Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar, on Sunday, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and senator Patty Murray, claimed that president Donald Trump had still not used more than half of the funds.

The senators claimed that the Trump administration has “failed to disburse” $8bn (£6.42bn), the CDC has not used $4bn (£3.2bn), and an extra $2bn (£1.6bn) has not been allocated by the administration for free testing for uninsured US citizens.

“While it has been months since these funds were first appropriated, the Administration has failed to disburse significant amounts of this funding,” the Democratic senators wrote on Sunday.

They added that this has left “communities without the resources they need to address the significant challenges presented by the virus.”

Mr Schumer and Ms Murray said that the administration needs to continue funding testing and tracing, as it will “put our country at grave risk if it tries to declare an early victory.”

They added: “We call on you to immediately disburse the remainder of the $25 billion in funds to ramp up testing and contact tracing capacity.”

The senators asked the president to do this “to make sure providers are aware of and able to easily access the $2 billion that Congress appropriated to provide testing for the uninsured.”

On Saturday, at Mr Trump’s first political rally since March, the president said that he asked for Covid-19 testing to slow down, but administration officials later claimed it was a joke.

“When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases, so I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please,’” the president said in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, criticised Mr Trump’s comments in a statement to NBC.

“More than three months ago, Donald Trump claimed that ‘anybody that wants a test can get a test.’ This was a lie — one that cost thousands of lives,” Ms Bedingfield, said.

“Tonight in Tulsa, the President explained why America lagged so many other nations in testing: because he ‘said to my people slow the testing down please.’”

White House trade advisor, Peter Navarro, dismissed criticism and told CNN: “I know it was tongue-in-cheek. That’s news for you, tongue-in-cheek,” in reference to Mr Trump’s comments.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, there are now more than 2.2 million people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached at least 119,997.