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Governors facing growing pressure to revive economies decimated by the coronavirus said on Sunday that a shortage of tests was among the most significant hurdles in the way of lifting restrictions in their states. “We are fighting a biological war,” Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “We have been asked as governors to fight that war without the supplies we need.” In interviews on Sunday morning talk shows, Mr. Northam was among the governors who said they needed the swabs and reagents required for the test, and urged federal officials to help them get those supplies. (Rojas, 4/19)

Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, said it is unfair to suggest that states have enough testing to move forward with reopening, as some Trump administration officials have. “To try to push this off to say that the governors have plenty of testing, and they should just get to work on testing, somehow we aren’t doing our job, is just absolutely false,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Every governor in America has been pushing and fighting and clawing to get more tests, not only from the federal government, but from every private lab in America and from all across the world. And we continue to do so.” (Ansari, Meichtry and Yap, 4/19)

Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam countered Trump, saying it was “delusional” to believe enough testing was in place to move quickly on easing restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the deadly virus. “We are fighting a biological war,” Northam said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that governors have been left “to fight that war without the supplies we need.” (Kaleem, King and Read, 4/19)

“Every governor in America has been pushing and fighting and clawing to get more tests, not only from the federal government, but from every private lab in America and from across the world,” Hogan said. “It’s nowhere near where it needs to be.” The governors’ comments came as the District, Maryland and Virginia hit another milestone in the coronavirus pandemic Sunday, with a combined 24,200 confirmed cases and 930 deaths. (Lazo, Cox and Natanson, 4/19)

Public health experts have said testing would need to at least double or even triple to allow even a partial reopening of America's economy. Without such a massive increase, officials will lack a clear picture of who is infected, who can safely return to work, how and where the virus is spreading and whether stay-at-home orders can begin to be eased, those experts said. President Donald Trump insisted later Sunday that "I am right on testing." (Smith, 4/19)

Harvard researchers warned that if the country wants the economy to open back up -- and stay that way -- testing must go up to at least 500,000 people per day. Testing nationwide is currently at 150,000 per day, they said, adding that "If we can't be doing at least 500,000 tests a day by May 1, it is hard to see any way we can remain open." (Silverman, 4/20)

With President Donald Trump saying he wants to lift stay-at-home novel coronavirus orders and open up parts of the country, more than 45 economists, social scientists, lawyers and ethicists say there's a growing consensus pointing to a major step necessary to put Americans back to work: dramatically upscaling testing. In a report titled "Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience," set to be released on Monday, a blue-ribbon panel of thought leaders across the political spectrum called COVID-19 "a profound threat to our democracy, comparable to the Great Depression and World War II." (Whitcraft, Hutchinson and Shubailat, 4/19)

As the coronavirus began stampeding across Maryland in recent weeks, scientists tucked away in a University of Maryland research lab in Baltimore got an idea about how to put their high-tech robots to use. They could retool the machinery and significantly increase Maryland’s capacity to test people for covid-19 — testing that will be critical to any plan to eventually “reopen” the state. (Cohn and Broadwater, 4/19)