Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) started developing their own virus-testing method in December 2019, when a cluster of COVID-19 cases was made known to the world outside China, despite the CCP’s coverup efforts. Washington state’s King County, where UW is located, became ground zero for the pandemic after the first COVID-19 infections on American soil.
“We are tapping into the rich resources of Stanford University and Stanford Health Care to scale up our capacity as quickly as possible to provide the tests that clinicians need to care for their patients,” said lab medical director Benjamin Pinsky in a statement. His team worked through January and February to make sure the tests they designed meet federal standards.
“Very few other places in the country are capable of providing this scale of COVID-19 testing at this point,” Pinsky said. “Fortunately, we had the foresight in January to imagine that the ability to provide testing for COVID-19 would be important, and we worked hard to make that happen.”
As of Mar. 17, the AEI estimated national testing capacity, with two samples per patient, was at 36,810 tests per day. That number is expected to substantially grow to over 100,000 by the end of the month.
The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.