CNN medical 'expert' says Biden admin should 'mail tests to every American'

CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen questioned Monday why the Biden administration is not mailing COVID-19 tests to "every American."

Ahead of the Christmas holiday, Wen stressed that testing should occur the same day as the planned festivity. Wen was asked: "So if you took a test Christmas Eve and you are meeting up with people on Christmas Day, you were negative on Christmas Eve—doesn't mean you still are [on] Christmas Day?"

"That's exactly right," Wen answered the CNN personality. "The closer your test is to when you're gathering with people, the better. I think this is something the Biden administration really needs to work on."

Wen applauded the White House for performing "so well" when it comes to vaccinating the American public. "That's great. But they now need to put the same amount of effort to increasing access to testing."

"Why not mail tests to every American?" Wen asked, pondering why America doesn't take inspiration from the United Kingdom, Germany, or other approaches from around the world. "Testing should not be the limiting factor," Wen declared.

Wen, who is an emergency physician and George Washington University professor of health policy and management at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, recommended that Americans indoors around the holidays have two out of three protections against the coronavirus: vaccination, masking, and testing.

"So if you are fully vaccinated and ideally boosted and you want to see other people indoors without a mask, meaning maybe you want to have dinner with them, ideally everybody also gets tested that same day with a rapid test," Wen said.

She noted that if nobody is vaccinated or if there are some unvaccinated loved ones present, family members should be masked and COVID-19 tested.

Alluding to the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 through the winter months, Wen reiterated to the CNN pandemic panel the handful of protective options against the coronavirus "at this point with that much virus around us."