ALLEN: And welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from our studios in Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen. The Trump administration is hoping to get the U.S. and its economy quickly back on track, but health experts say there needs to be more coronavirus testing before even considering a return to normalcy, whatever that will be. Now CNN is learning that as early as January private labs were trying to develop effective tests but were blocked by the federal government. Drew Griffin explains what happened and what didn't.</s>DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As coronavirus was silently racing around the world in late January and early February, the federal government not only failed to use the massive arsenal of hundreds of laboratories across the United States for emergency testing, it actually left road blocks in place to prevent non-government labs from assisting. That is according to documents obtained by CNN and interviews with more than a dozen scientists and physicians involved in coronavirus testing.</s>DR. AMESH ADALJA, JOHN HOPKINS UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: At the very beginning of this pandemic, it was the federal government that had the sole ability to do the testing and made it very difficult for private labs, for university labs to make their own tests based on certain regulatory hurdles. END
U.S. Blocked Private Labs From Using Tests in January.