When state leaders got on a conference call with President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force on Monday, a sense of alarm over the spike in cases sweeping the South and West was palpable.
Yet as daily new infections climbed above 30,000 for the first time since May 1, Vice President Mike Pence repeated the same assurance offered by Trump at his rally in Oklahoma two days earlier: The spike is largely due to increased testing.
A task force official said Pence was referencing what many governors had previously observed - that the increased numbers in their states were because of expanded testing - and that he was simply urging them to explain that situation to their constituents. But to others on the call, the exchange was emblematic of the lack of meaningful federal guidance from the task force, even as states wrestle with new contagions that threaten to erase weeks of steady progress.
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