Robert Redfield, the director for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) openly admitted on Wednesday that some COVID-19 deaths have been misdiagnosed as influenza in the U.S.

Redfield made the comments at hearing at U.S. House of Representatives on COVID-19 outbreak, in response to questions over the current severe shortage of detection agents for the novel coronavirus in the U.S.

There are more than 1,200 cases of the novel coronavirus in the U.S., according to state and local health agencies and the CDC.

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