Physician tells CNN Biden 'dropped the ball' on COVID testing: 'Cannot believe this is where we are'

A physician speaking with CNN’s “New Day” knocked the Biden administration on Tuesday, arguing that the executive “dropped the ball” on COVID-19 testing.

During an interview with CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins, Brown University School of Public Health Dean Dr. Ashish K. Jha was asked whether the administration was missing a “critical window” for COVID testing heading into the new year.  

“You saw joe-biden” target=”_blank”>President Biden< is that they believe they’re gonna have this solved by mid-January, in a few weeks. But, how critical is the window that we’re missing right now for testing?” asked Collins.

CNN REPORTER KNOCKS BIDEN OVER INTERVIEW ON COVID TEST SHORTAGES: HE ‘SEEMS CONFUSED’

“Oh I think it’s incredibly critical, and I cannot believe this is where we are almost two years into the pandemic. Everybody saw it coming. We knew we needed more tests. I think the administration dropped the ball on this,” Jha responded.

Jha said that the Biden administration appeared to be primarily focused on infectious-disease throughout the year while “not paying a lot of attention” to the importance of testing. He added that while a focus on vaccines is “terrific,” the decision to largely ignore the infrastructure for testing has been “really costly” this holiday season. 

A few CNN correspondents have recently criticized the president for his handling of the pandemic. 

REPORTERS ASK BIDEN IF TESTING SHORTAGE IS A FAILURE FOR THE ADMINISTRATION

CNN reporter Phil Mattingly questioned last week whether the administration’s inability to adequately prepare for the latest variant with testing should be considered a “failure.”

“No, it’s not,” Biden responded. “Because COVID is spreading so rapidly if you notice. It just happened almost overnight just in the last month. And so, it’s not a failure, but an alarm bell went off. I don’t think anybody anticipated that this was going to be as rapidly spreading as it did.”

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Biden again admitted to a lack of foresight on rapid tests in a call with several U.S. governors on Monday, saying, “It is not enough. It’s clearly not enough. If I had – we – had known, we would have gone harder, quicker, if we could have.”

Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.