US again shatters record number of daily new COVID-19 cases with 97,080 — as case numbers continue to grow much faster than testing, despite Trump's claims

October 30, 2020

US again shatters record number of daily new COVID-19 cases with 97,080 — as case numbers continue to grow much faster than testing, despite Trump's claims

coronavirus testing florida — A medical professional administers a COVID-19 test at a drive-thru testing site in Orlando, Florida on Thursday.
Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

The US hit a record number of daily coronavirus cases with 97,080 on Friday, as case numbers continue to grow much faster than testing, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project.
This contradicts President Donald Trump, who has said repeatedly in recent weeks that the number of coronavirus cases is growing due to increased testing.
Admiral Brett Giroir, the Trump administration's testing czar, has also said the case surge is "not just a function of testing."
The COVID Tracking Project also counted nearly 1.4 million tests that same day, with nearly 47,000 people hospitalized and a daily death count of 933.
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The US hit a record number of new daily coronavirus cases with 97,080 on Friday, as case numbers continue to grow much faster than testing, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project.

The Project counted nearly 1.4 million tests that same day, with nearly 47,000 people hospitalized for COVID-19 and a daily death count of 933.

The data also showed that case numbers are rising much more sharply than the number of tests being administered, which The Project called "an indication of uncontrolled spread" of the virus.

This contradicts President Donald Trump, who has said repeatedly in recent weeks that the number of coronavirus cases is growing due to increased testing.

—The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) October 30, 2020

"Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST," Trump said Monday on Twitter. He repeated the claim again in a tweet today as the US broke its daily case record.

But Admiral Brett Giroir, the Trump administration's testing czar, said the data show testing is not the reason for the case surge in an interview on NBC's Today's Show earlier this week.

"It's not just a function of testing," he said. "We do assess that the cases are actually going up, they're real, because hospitalizations and deaths are starting to go up."

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