Yesterday, Kathy Griffin took to Twitter to tell her followers that despite being sent to a coronavirus isolation ward with "unbearably painful symptoms", she has been unable to get tested.
The revelation was made in response to a tweet by President Donald Trump, who claimed that the United States has now carried out more tests for the deadly virus than South Korea, a country which has received a lot of praise over the last couple of weeks for testing more people per capita than any other nation.
"Just reported that the United States has done far more 'testing' than any other nation, by far," Trump tweeted on Wednesday. "In fact, over an eight day span, the United States now does more testing than what South Korea (which has been a very successful tester) does over an eight week span. Great job!"
In response to the tweet, the comedian and actress branded the President a liar.
"He’s lying," she asserted. "I was sent to the #COVID19 isolation ward room in a major hospital ER from a separate urgent care facility after showing UNBEARABLY PAINFUL symptoms. The hospital couldn’t test me for #coronavirus because of CDC (Pence task force) restrictions. #TESTTESTTEST."
This TikTok influencer is in hospital with coronavirus days after licking a toilet seat:The tweet also included a picture of the 59-year-old in hospital wearing a medical mask.
According to CNN, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, told reporters, "We now have 370,000 tests that have been done. The majority of those - over 220,000 in the last eight days, which, those of you who have been tracking the South Korea numbers, put us equivalent to what they did in eight weeks that we did in eight days."
While the stats show that the US has carried out more tests than South Korea, this does not take into account the latter's smaller population.
"Yes, it is true that South Korea has run less tests as an absolute number. However, it is important to point out the huge difference in the population sizes," Aubree Gordon, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, told CNN.