As Testing Quickly Ramps Up, Expect More U.S. Coronavirus Cases

March 1, 20202:48 PM ET
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE


Enlarge this imageAn ambulance worker adjusts her protective mask as she wheels a stretcher into a nursing facility in Kirkland, Wash., on Saturday where more than 50 people were found to be sick and are being tested for COVID-19 virus.

Elaine Thompson/APUpdated at 10:21 p.m ET

As labs across the United States quickly ramp up their ability to test for the novel coronavirus, public health officials are anxiously awaiting results that could start to reveal its secret movements around the country.

New cases of the coronavirus were identified in at least four states on Sunday: New York, Rhode Island, California and Washington.

"We now have 75,000 tests available out there in the United States, and over the next week that will expand radically," said Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, on ABC's This Week.

"Right now, it's important that we test people who have any type of respiratory illness — respiratory symptoms--that is unidentified," Azar said.

He said more than 3,600 people have been tested so far nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which provides testing and also confirms positive test results from state labs, says it has run fewer than 500 tests.