The Obama-era official made the comment in an interview with Yahoo Finance on Saturday.
“Unfortunately, we were a bit late to recognize how bad this was as a country,” he said. “We have been late, also, when it comes to ramping up testing, which we desperately need. And we’re also still having trouble getting the materials, particularly the protective equipment that health care providers need. We’re making progress over the last month, but it’s unfortunately nowhere near where it needs to be if we want to feel safe to relax social distancing restrictions.”
The Trump administration’s highly criticized response to the novel coronavirus has resulted in confusion across the states with some implementing strict lockdowns and other going easy.
“What we really need both with testing and when it comes to the protective equipment is we do need the federal government to be more aggressive in stepping in and taking over the supply, the production, as well as the distribution piece of this,” Murthy said.