特朗普政府选择佛罗里达州杰克逊维尔——计划中的共和党大会所在地——作为该国三个城市之一，将建立免费的“激增测试”网站，试图捕捉感染病毒但没有表现出症状的人。
这一实验性推动背后的想法是创建弹出网站，在一个地区每天测试约5000人，测试时间为5至12天——这是一种加速测试，将揭示病毒在该社区的传播程度。
选择杰克逊维尔的决定将有助于卫生官员确定一个中等规模的社区——被认为是中度高风险的社区，但不一定是爆发的起点——是否可以通过让居民接受大量检测来遏制病毒。但是位置选择也可以帮助总统唐纳德·特朗普在推进会议计划之前，先确定病毒的传播范围。
特朗普将于8月发表接受共和党提名的演讲，此时佛罗里达州的病毒病例数在最近几周翻了一番，卫生官员警告不要举行大型集会。
特朗普周二表示，这还没有达成协议。
“当我们几周前签约的时候，看起来很不错，”根据一份记录，他在接受“葛丽塔·范·苏丝汀的全场紧逼”采访时说。“现在突然之间，价格有点上涨，而且还会下跌。这真的取决于时机。听着，我们很灵活。我们可以做很多事情，但我们非常灵活。”
负责协调检测工作的助理卫生部长布雷特·吉罗亚尔(Adm. Brett Giroir)周二在与记者的电话会议上宣布了这一决定，但他坚称自己从未想到该网站的政治重要性。
杰克逊维尔和另外两个城市一起被选中——得克萨斯州的爱丁堡和巴吞鲁日路易斯安那州——因为他们符合某些标准，他说。
“我将向你们展示我的政治知识:我不知道共和党大会甚至在杰克逊维尔举行，直到我打电话给州卫生官员，我们开始讨论这个问题，他打电话给我。所以这告诉你我的思想在哪里，”吉罗说。
“但如果你看看所有的标准，杰克逊维尔真的符合这些，”他补充道。
美国卫生与公众服务部海军上将布雷特·皮·吉罗尔在众议院能源与商业委员会作证，阐述特朗普政府对该法案的回应...更多
2020年6月23日，在华盛顿国会山，美国卫生与公众服务部部长布雷特·皮·吉罗尔在众议院能源与商业委员会上就特朗普政府对COVID-19大流行的回应作证。凯文迪特施/通过路透社，档案池
“这对我来说没什么区别，我肯定在任何一个城镇都发生了什么，”吉罗亚尔说。“它刚刚符合公共卫生标准。”
吉罗尔说，杰克逊维尔和其他社区没有被选中，因为他们的患病人口比例最高。相反，他说，他们是中等规模的社区，已经看到了社区扩散的证据，并且有现有的基础设施来测试在短时间内测试成千上万人的概念。
他说:“我们想确保我们能做好这件事，并做好适当的转变，这在那些地方会有所不同。”。
Giroir说，在这些激增的地点进行测试可能还需要三到五天才能得出结果。
随着德克萨斯州、佛罗里达州和亚利桑那州的病例激增，检测能力已经捉襟见肘。Giroir说等待时间通常被控制在几天内。蒙大拿和华盛顿州，DC。他说，测试结果的周转时间最长，在4到5天之间。他说，另外24个州在三到四天内报告结果，其余的州在两到三天之间。
新的联邦测试点包括杰克逊维尔的第一海岸高中，以及摄政商场和弗兰克·A·彼得森学院。
与其他州相比，佛罗里达州和得克萨斯州今年春天在重启努力方面尤为积极。其结果是新病例的大量涌现，这已经使当地医院不堪重负，并促使这些州的地方官员取消了再次手术。
白宫冠状病毒协调员比尔克斯指责一些南部地区重开得太快。周二，在接受西六月的《沃顿商业日报》采访时，她说，他们应该更接近白宫今年春天提出的标准，即只有当社区范围持平或下降时，才允许某些企业重新开业。
她说:“当他们开门时，很多个人和企业没有通过所有推荐的大门，而是加大油门，开始行驶65英里，而不是以25英里的时速行驶25英里。”。“这一点现在在大多数年龄组的病例分布中非常明显。”
Giroir一再表示，各州不能仅仅通过测试来解决危机。他和其他卫生官员表示，对抗病毒最关键的工具是社交距离和戴口罩。
Trump admin. to flood Jacksonville with free testing ahead of GOP convention
The Trump administration has picked Jacksonville, Florida -- the site of the planned GOP convention -- as one of three cities in the country where it will set up free "surge testing" sites to try to catch people who are infected with the virus but aren’t showing symptoms.
The idea behind the experimental push is to create pop-up sites to test some 5,000 people a day for five to 12 days in one area -- a kind of turbo-charged testing effort that would expose how widespread the virus is in that community.
The decision to pick Jacksonville would help health officials determine if a mid-sized community -- deemed moderately high risk but not necessarily ground zero of an outbreak -- can keep the virus at bay by flooding its residents with testing. But the location pick also could help PresidentDonald Trumpdetermine how widespread the virus already is before advancing plans for the convention.
Trump’s speech to accept the Republican nomination, slated for August, comes as virus case numbers in Florida across the state have doubled in recent weeks, and health officials have warned against large gatherings.
Trump said Tuesday it wasn't a done deal.
"When we signed a few weeks ago, it looked good," he said in an interview with "Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren," according to a transcript. "And now all of a sudden it's spiking up a little bit and that's going to go down. It really depends on the timing. Look, we're very flexible. We can do a lot of things, but we're very flexible."
Adm. Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary of Health who coordinates testing efforts, announced the decision in a phone call with reporters on Tuesday, but insisted that the political importance of the site never occurred to him.
Jacksonville was picked along with two other cities -- Edinburg, Texas, andBaton Rouge, Louisiana -- because they fit certain criteria, he said.
"I'm going to show you about my political knowledge: I had no idea that the Republican convention was even in Jacksonville, until I called the state health officer and we started talking about that and he called me. So that shows you where my mind is," Giroir said.
"But if you look at all the criteria, Jacksonville really meets those," he added.
"It makes no difference to me and I'm sure to Dr. (Deborah) Birx what's going on in any town" politically, Giroir said. "It just met the public health criteria."
Giroir said Jacksonville and the other communities were not picked because they had the highest percentage of people who were sick. Instead, he said, they were medium-sized communities that had seen evidence of community spread and had the existing infrastructure to test the concept of testing thousands of people in a short timespan.
"We want to make sure that we can get this right and do it with the appropriate turnaround, and that it makes a difference in those places," he said.
Giroir said testing at these surge sites might still take three to five days before a person gets a result.
The move comes as testing capacity has been strained with cases surging in Texas, Florida and Arizona. Giroir said the wait times have generally been kept to a few days. Montana and Washington, DC. have the longest turnaround for testing results -- between four and five days, he said. Another 24 states report results in three to four days, and the rest of the states are between two and three days, he said.
The new federal testing sites include First Coast High School in Jacksonville, as well as the Regency Mall and Frank A Peterson Academy.
Florida and Texas were particularly aggressive in reopening efforts this spring, compared with other states. The result has been a crush of new cases that has already strained local hospitals and has prompted local officials in those states to roll back reopenings.
Birx, the White House coordinator for coronavirus, blamed some the southern region for reopening too quickly. In an interview Tuesday with SiriusXM’s "Wharton Business Daily," she said they should have stuck closer to the criteria outlined by the White House this spring that allowed certain businesses to reopen only if community spread was flat or declining.
"When they opened, instead of gating closely through all of the recommended gates, a lot of individuals and a lot of businesses instead of driving 25 in a 25 mile an hour zone, stepped on the gas and started going 65," she said. "And it's really evident now in the spread of cases across most age groups."
Giroir has said repeatedly that the states can't tackle the crisis through testing only. He and other health officials say the most critical tool in fighting the virus is social distancing and wearing masks.
