The coronavirus pandemic was too big and moving too fast for the CDC to develop its own tests in time, he said. Health officials across the country began pleading for a test that worked, or at least the authorization to use another test. “We had all these state public health labs that had a perfectly good [test] on their hands, and they knew it, they were upset,” Greninger said. The trouble with the CDC test arose because the third attempt at a match, known as the N3 component, produced an inconclusive result even on known samples of the coronavirus. In a CDC tele-briefing on Feb. 29 that included some local and state public health directors, local officials lamented the initial inability to test.

Source: Washington Post March 16, 2020 22:32 UTC