As hospitals grapple with more coughing and feverish emergency-room visitors than they can test, the White House has deployed a SWAT team of fixers and technocrats to ramp up coronavirus testing, in an implicit acknowledgment that the Trump administration's response has continued to fall short of what is needed.
About 100 staffers and outside advisers, split between the health department and the White House, are currently working on teams to rapidly increase supplies of test kits and cope with shortages across the country, said four people with knowledge of the strategy.
"This is the A-team of people who get shit done," said one official, who's worked with some of the staffers leading the effort. "We've got to show the American people that we can deliver on the testing promises" after weeks of President Donald Trump vowing that "anybody who needs a test can get a test" - a claim that doesn't match the growing number of doctors, hospitals and patients who have said they're still waiting for access and results.
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