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Visit nbcnews.com slash XFINITY for full offer terms and details. Welcome to the list from Meet the Press. I'm Carrie Dan reporting, not from the Pill of Fort, where I usually record this podcast when I'm working from home, but in my new studio, which is what I'm going to call the very small, very dark, but well-sound insulated code closet where I am recording this, because there is an extremely loud city construction project going on right next to where I live. But through trial and error, a great editor and a lot of testing, hopefully this podcast sounds crystal clear.
Speaking of testing, though, that is certainly the word of the day today, as public health officials testify remotely on Capitol Hill about the next steps in the nation's COVID-19 response. And almost everyone seems to agree that the path forward is going to have to involve frequent and widespread testing for COVID-19 nationwide, to help identify those who need to be quarantined and give the rest of the public the confidence to venture back out into public life. The next question is, how? And who's responsible for doing that?
The president in a news conference yesterday said of the testing ramp up, quote, we have met the moments and we have prevailed. The United States to date has conducted somewhere around 9 million coronavirus tests, which works out to a little bit less than 3% of the population. And the consensus from pretty much every public health official has been, we're going to need more than that, way more than that, to get back to normal. The White House says it's going to steer funds to the states to help them amp up their testing to the tune of $11 billion, which brings us back to the question of, so who's going to be responsible for doing all of this?
A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds that a majority of Americans, about 6 in 10, say it's the federal government that should take the lead on making sure there are enough COVID-19 tests available in order to safely lift restrictions on public activity. About 40% say that the federal government should be mostly responsible, and another 21% say the Fed should be entirely responsible. The other 40 or so percent in America say the state governments are the ones who should take the lead on testing. Now, throughout most of the outbreak, the administration has suggested that states should be the ones responsible for things like procuring ventilators and PPE.
And they've argued that the federal government's role is just kind of to assist them. And that attitude, perhaps unsurprisingly, has made its way into the partisan breakdown on this particular questions. Among Republicans, it's a majority, about 6 in 10, who say it's state governments who need to be taking the lead here. Among Democrats, it's an even bigger majority, 8 in 10, who say, nope, nope, it should be the federal government.
That should be mostly or even entirely responsible for getting testing capacity in place. Now, one thing in this poll that has been consistent, hospitals, public health officials, and local and state officials continue, even once after the outbreak to get high praise for most Americans for their handling of the outbreak. But at least in this poll, the president's trajectory is going in the wrong direction. In late March, 48% of those surveyed in this P research poll gave him the high marks for handling the crisis.
Now, that's just 41%. So there you have it, some important context today about testing and who the public thinks should be responsible for it. That's all for us, if you'd like to hear more of this free audio briefing, you can always download us on your favorite podcast app. Let's kickstart your wellness journey with the Cctardada app.
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