That's the response from epidemiologists after President Donald Trump said that the United States has "the best testing in the world" for COVID-19, and suggested that Europe's relatively low numbers are because its countries "don't test."
"On the specific question of whether we've done so much testing that that's why we have cases, it's quite the opposite," Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told NBC News on a video call late Sunday. "We're doing more testing now because we have so many cases that we can't keep up."
Trump repeated his long-standing frustration with the higher levels of testing in the U.S., saying, "In a way, we're creating trouble."
"Well, cases are up — many of those cases shouldn't even be cases," he said.
The U.S., which currently has some of the highest case numbers in the world, has had more than 141,000 deaths from the coronavirus, according to NBC News' tracker.
Trump also suggested that some other countries have had less severe outbreaks than the U.S. precisely because they "don't test."
"If you look at the ratio of number of tests we've done to the number of confirmed cases, it's not very good, it's not the best on earth by far," he said. "When you have more cases, you have to do more testing. It's not just that you find more cases with more tests."
The U.S. positivity rate currently stands at 9 percent, according to the CDC — comparable to rates in Pakistan, Iran, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
"On the specific question of whether we've done so much testing that that's why we have cases, it's quite the opposite," Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told NBC News on a video call late Sunday. "We're doing more testing now because we have so many cases that we can't keep up."
Trump repeated his long-standing frustration with the higher levels of testing in the U.S., saying, "In a way, we're creating trouble."
"Well, cases are up — many of those cases shouldn't even be cases," he said.
The U.S., which currently has some of the highest case numbers in the world, has had more than 141,000 deaths from the coronavirus, according to NBC News' tracker.
Trump also suggested that some other countries have had less severe outbreaks than the U.S. precisely because they "don't test."
"If you look at the ratio of number of tests we've done to the number of confirmed cases, it's not very good, it's not the best on earth by far," he said. "When you have more cases, you have to do more testing. It's not just that you find more cases with more tests."
The U.S. positivity rate currently stands at 9 percent, according to the CDC — comparable to rates in Pakistan, Iran, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
