Quote of the Day: Maybe Testing Isn’t So Great After All

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.One of Mike Pence’s aides tested positive for coronavirus today. President Trump says this is why tests are a bad idea:

This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great. The tests are perfect, but something can happen between the test where it’s good and then something happens and all of a sudden— She was tested very recently and tested negative and today I guess for some reason she tested positive.

Trump has said before that he’s not crazy about tests because all they do is make him look bad. Now he’s going further: he seems unsure the tests are even measuring something real. They’re negative one day and then positive the next. Why? “For some reason.”
I wonder how far down this rabbit hole he’s gone? Does Trump even believe the pandemic is real? He can’t see it, after all. Does he figure that if everyone would just stop reporting the numbers then everything would be OK? Or maybe he’s taking a purely transactional view: testing is fine in the abstract, but not so good when it tags someone close by who might be used to humiliate him. There’s no telling. But whatever it is, it’s pretty obvious that the stress of dealing with COVID-19 is accelerating whatever mental deterioration he was undergoing already.

Trump: Katie, she tested very good for a long period of time and then all of the sudden today she tested positive… This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great pic.twitter.com/iM9Xo3jddU
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) May 8, 2020

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