Twice now, on March 13 and again on April 27, President Trump gathered some of the country's top corporate executives — from test producers to lab processors to major retailers — to tout his plan to make COVID-19 testing widely available. His vision: Blanket the country in drive-through testing sites.
The president, speaking from the White House Rose Garden, promised that "stores in virtually every location" would be rolling out testing, including some of the "greatest retailers anywhere in the world" that "cover this country in large part," such as CVS, Target, Walgreens and Walmart.
The results have been modest at best. NPR reviewed the number of sites these retailers set up and found they are small in quantity compared to their national reach. On average, only 4% of the companies' stores are currently hosting drive-through testing sites.