skorton joining us now to tell us more about the letter and seeing in the member labs. doctor, thank you for being here tell us about the shortages, how big of a problem are they? how much are they hampering capacity to increase for testing in this country? >> well, thank you for having me on what you just mentioned about the numbers, there's some people that think that number per day has to be maybe a million or 3 million a day and first thing to talk about is why we need so much testing we need it not only right now to deal with the crush of the pandemic, but as we begin to reopen as a country, which, of course, we have to do eventually, we need to have a lot more testing in workplaces as earlier segment talked about and other areas so we had done some very good interaction with the task force and appreciate dr. birx reaching out to us and others to oversee laboratories as many intuitions do and we believe just three things to be done to help move things along. >> so tell us about those three things i understand you laid them out in the letter. what are they and what

david skorton, president of the association of american medical colleges.t's echoed in a letter he sent to the white house coronavirus task force this week calling for more federal involvement in the testing process. >> we were not ready for such a big, big deal as this pandemic has become. >> reporter: according to the covid tracking project, more than 3.2 million tests have been run in the united states. that's enough for less than 1% of the country. and it falls short of what experts say is needed to reopen america. the american enterprise institute estimates 750,000 tests per week are needed. other groups put that number in the millions. as reported infections continue to rise, many testing sites across the country are being met with long lines. one site in miami closed after 90 minutes monday because it already reached capacity. >> i was very frustrated. in fact, after i got off the phone with them, i tried. >> reporter: and americans say they're still having trouble with testing access. searcy farrell was denied testing five times even after her docto