Mitt Romney: 'I find our testing record nothing to celebrate whatsoever'

Romney pointed to comments made on Monday by Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, in which he claimed that the per capita rate of testing is now superior in the United States than even South Korea, which has been held up as a model.

Romney then told Giroir that South Korea's number of tests are decreasing while they're increasing in the US because they were quicker to test their citizens from the outset of the outbreak.

"I understand that politicians are going to frame data in a way that's most positive politically," said Romney. "Of course, I don't expect that from admirals."

"Yesterday you celebrated that we had done more tests and more tests per capita even than South Korea," he added. "But you ignored the fact that they accomplished theirs at the beginning of the outbreak, while we treaded water during February and March."

Romney went on to note that by March 6, the US had completed "just" 2,000 tests, while South Korea had conducted more than 140,000 tests. The senator then pointed out that the US has suffered over 80,000 coronavirus-related deaths, while South Korea has had fewer than 300.

Public health experts have said the US is still not conducting enough tests to stop the spread of the virus and safely reopen the economy. A Harvard Global Health Institute team said last week, for example, that the US should be testing at least 900,000 people a day by May 15. Trump announced Monday that the current number is about 300,000 tests per day. And while testing in the US has improved over the past several months, South Korea was much quicker to ramp up testing in the first place, slowing the spread of the virus there.

Romney, who was the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, has at times been a vocal critic of the Trump administration and was the sole Republican to vote to convict the President on the charge of abuse of power during Trump's impeachment trial. Trump has frequently insulted Romney and recently Romney was the only GOP senator who was not asked to be on the President's new bipartisan task force focused on reopening the country amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.