How are you?

I'm doctor.

It's nice to be a covert 19 dust on you.

It's a nasal swab.

It's just before daybreak in Southern California, and Dr Dan Katz isn't letting the rain sloping down.

Don't head to toe in P p e.

He and his team are conducting test after test residents here who fear they may have covert 19.

That's it.

We'll call you with the results, and you could do 150 of these today, 150 today, 150 tomorrow and 100 50 on Wednesday.

They have the test and the tests.

A beautiful anybody.

That major test gets a test more than five weeks Since this promise widespread rapid testing Ford, a Corona virus, still remains patchwork at best.

In a country of over 328 million people on Lee, around three million have been tested.

And as the country continues to struggle with the outbreak, it's becoming increasingly evident that testing for both the virus and it's antibodies may be a key component of fully reopening the country.

Yet much about the long term effects of testing is still to be known, and for some Americans.

It's too little, too late.

Samantha North Art of New York began feeling six on March 22nd.

It's a pain throughout my body that I've never had with any other type of flu.

Samantha knew she had been in contact with someone who had tested positive after five days of symptoms and registering with the health department.

She reached out to her doctor's office to find out about getting tested there, talk to them, explain to my timeline, explained to my symptoms of the nurse, spoke with the doctor and came back and said, So we're calling you a presumptive positive.

Sorry, there's no access to testing right now.

Please don't go to the hospital unless you're having trouble breathing.

By day nine, Samantha symptoms worsened.

She called the Health Department a second time to try to get a test.

April 1st was the day that I legitimately almost went to the hospital.

Jim and I spoke to you, said You have all these trigger things that should have escalated you to the friends and front with a positive case, having all the symptoms.

Timeline of isolation, you probably should have heard from somebody by now.

But her efforts futile, she was never able to obtain a test.

It's really scary to know that you are the person who has something that could potentially kill somebody else.

Even Frontline workers are having trouble getting reliable rapid tests as faras testing concerned.

I don't think we're catching up.

In New York City, the epicenter of the country's outbreak testing for the city's fire department is woefully inadequate, according to Gerard Fitzgerald, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

Still, to this day were over a month into this now, and we still have no ability to get rapid testing with rapid results, the urgency to fix our testing system.

Coming against the background of Maur and more calls to reopen the country today, President Trump said that his administration will put forth a plan to do just that in the coming days.

That's what we want.

We wanna have our country open, We want to return to normal life, our country's gonna be open.

That is gonna be successfully opened.

But experts warn that rushing things without mass testing could undo the recent gains that are successfully flattening the curve.

Doctor Patrice Harris is the president of the American Medical Association.

The foundation of any informed choices or policy decisions going forward is science and the evidence, and one critical piece of this is testing capacity, she says.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the United States has been playing catch up in terms of testing.

We certainly have been behind regarding testing capacity, so we really need in all hands on deck effort to get the testing supplies that we need to build up the testing capacity that we require.

In contrast, South Korea is starting to return to normal, thanks in part to mass testing and intensive contact tracing, which helped contain the virus.

Only 217 people have died of covert 19.

They're at it over 10,500 confirmed cases.

Government program has become the gold standard worldwide.

Korea is now sending 600,000 of their state of the art rapid tests to the United States at the request of President Trump, expected here tomorrow.

The lack of national testing has four states and private companies to fill the gap.

I'm getting ready, Thio see the patients, so I have to wear my equipment.

Everything is in the cars, Dr Iman Bar is a concierge doctor in Southern California who says her schedule is now jammed with covert 19 house calls.

If you can keep that like on your mouth.

But not over the weekend, Dr Barr and teams from local labs are busy administering tests to these Manhattan Beach first responders, conducting both the nasal swamp to detect those currently infected and the antibody test to see who has immunity.

What role do you think you're playing right now and getting people like these guys back to work?

So I see myself as a provider that serves in the community to be able to make sure that nobody's spreading the infection as well.

If you learn that you do have, the antibodies will get that give you a sense of confidence.

I think we'll just least make me more reassured when I'm around.

You know, young kids home and are both my wife and I worked, so we rely on them also a daycare to watch our kids, so it gives me some sense with that because they are everybody's that no recorded shift.

There's a concern that because you are on the front lines, you are responsible and you know some of these guys might be spreading it.

We know the risks that we take when we come to work.

It's a new experience for us to take that risk home to our families.

Getting people tested on a large scale has not been easy here or pretty much anywhere.

You know, here in Los Angeles, like so many places were just left on our own.

There was no test that were being delivered from the federal government, so we had to step up and figure this out ourselves.

L.

A's Mayor Eric Garcetti is calling on the public to doom or than just adhere to social distancing woman.

You already have delegated testing in the city.

Yeah, it's been a remarkable to see citizen step up citizens like Sean Penn.

It is a new kind of wake up call.

It's gotta be all hands on deck three Actor turned activists nonprofit named Core focuses on communities in crisis.

Founded back in 2010 the group supports disaster relief around the world.

But now the focus is pens home state of California, Operating Cove in 19 test sites, working with the L A mayor's office and fire Department pen and his team are training volunteers to run those drive thru facilities responsibility that often has fallen on first responders.

We can help here.

When I first spoke to Penn and Core CEO and lied about two weeks ago, they had just opened their first testing site.

Safety is our number one concern that we have so much training right now.

It is our biggest area, focussed about six foot hot zone limit for our volunteers.

There, in full PP.

They're describing through the window of the car what to do.

The closest that they ever get is on the hand off through the window of the kit.

Then they observed the kid being used, making sure that people understand how to use it all These are the Corps volunteers.

This weekend, when we visited them in West Los Angeles, they were up to six locations.

We should be on pace to have done 100,000 tests by first week mate and hopefully, you know, hoping to expand far beyond that.

A CZ we go along as long as it has to be done.

It's a concept that Pen believes is scalable is the idea to basically have no army of volunteers like this administering tests across the country, maybe not by core, but by replicating this with other NGOs.

Yeah, that that is, That's the dream Gold at this rate, the good work of volunteers.

Maybe our best shot for one of the most important pieces of this puzzle.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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