United States President Donald Trump says he will use the Defence Production Act to increase manufacturing of swabs used to test for the coronavirus.
Many governors have for weeks urged the White House to further evoke federal powers to increase private industry's production of medical supplies as health officials work to slow the spread of the virus. Trump has generally been reluctant to do so.
But the President said during a briefing that he would use the measure to increase production of swabs and that he would soon announce that production reaching 10 million per month.
To emphasise the point, Trump waved a swab in front of reporters. Trump also said that Vice-President Mike Pence would hold a call with governors tomorrow to discuss testing and send a list of lab facilities in their states.
The move comes at the US death toll from Covid-19 passed 40,000. According to a count by Johns Hopkins University, there have been 755,533 cases in the US and 40,661 deaths.
