US coronavirus testing has dropped dramatically: a 13% decrease in 2 weeks. Public-health experts say the system is broken.

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• The weekly average of daily coronavirus tests administered in the US is now 13% lower than it was at the end of July.
• Insufficient testing makes it hard to identify new cases in time to contain an outbreak.
• High test positivity rates in some states could also be a sign that a decline in cases may be partly the result of diminished testing capacity.
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The US faced yet another coronavirus testing bottleneck this month, as high demand delayed results. In late July and early August, the country's biggest diagnostic companies, LabCorp and Quest, were taking a full week to return test results.

By the time some people found out they had tested positive, they'd had plenty of time to spread the virus to others.

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