Coronavirus: CDC deletes infection testing numbers from website

'This is the coverup'

American citizens wave from a bus as they leave the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship at Daikoku Pier to be repatriated to the United States on February 17, 2020 in Yokohama, Japan (Carl Court/Getty Images)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has removed a running tally of the number of people tested for coronavirus in the US.

The deletion comes amid questions over the number of people tested in the US, and suggestions that the low number of tests could limit the countries' response to the spread of the disease.

"The lack of testing is a scandal," wrote Judd Legum, the journalist who first spotted the change, on Twitter. "This is the coverup."

Democrat Congressman Mark Pocan said he had written to Robert R Redfield, director of the CDC, demanding answers over the deletion, calling it inexplicable.

"Americans are dying," he wrote. "We deserve to know how many Americans have perished from COVID-19, and we deserve to know how many people have been tested for it.

"Knowing that CDC testing is keeping pace with the likely number of cases is imperative to maintaining public trust. With that in mind, when will you return to publicly reporting the total number of deaths and tested persons on your website?"

On 1 March, the site showed that 472 people had been tested for the disease by the CDC, with 22 of them confirmed or presumed positive. A day later, the number of people tested had disappeared, and the number of cases had nearly doubled.

"Presumed positive" refers to cases where people have been shown to have the disease by state testing but not by the CDC. The CDC's website notes that states are now reporting those cases independently, and that their counts are more current.

State officials have complained that the previous requirement that tests were carried out by the CDC in Atlanta was slowing down the official response to the virus. Experts have warned that the slow testing has made it difficult to get a full picture of the spread of the disease.

Testing rules are now being relaxed to allow states to carry out their own diagnostics, which will then be confirmed by the CDC.

In recent days, authorities across the US have rushed to prepare for more cases of the illness, focusing on increasing the number of testing kits. Officials have warned that the number of confirmed cases is likely to spike as more people are tested and found to be affected by the disease.

The CDC has allowed states such as New York – which has one confirmed case – to conduct its own testing. State governor Andrew Cuomo has said he will focus on increasing the number of tests in an attempt to deal with the disease.

"I would like to have a goal of 1,000 tests per day capacity within one week because again the more testing the better," Cuomo said at a briefing on Monday.

The CDC has been contacted for comment.