Mike Pence admitted Thursday that the administration will not be able to follow meet its promise to deliver one million coronavirus testing kits by the end of the week.

'We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate the demand going forward,' Pence said during a visit to a 3M Company plant in Minnesota Thursday afternoon.

'We're focused very much on a cruise ship just off the California coast today. The Coast Guard delivered a sufficient number of tests for the passengers on that ship,' the vice president said.

Pence spoke after Trump boasted in a tweet that there were only 129 cases of the virus in the U.S. - but that number is a result of the tiny number of tests which have so far taken place.

The unfolding test fiasco started in January.

The initial test developed to check individuals for if they had contracted coronavirus was flawed and led to several weeks of delays for local health officials and doctors who could not independently check patients for the fast-spreading respiratory virus.

Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that the White House would not be able to follow through on its promise to deliver 1 million coronavirus testing kits by the end of this week

On way to crisis zone: Mike Pence went first to Maplewood, Minnesota, for talks with manufacturer 3M, then was headed to Washington state where 10 of the 12 American deaths occurred

'We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate the demand going forward,' Pence admitted during a visit to a 3M Company plant in Minnesota Thursday afternoon

Boast: Pence spoke after Trump boasted in a tweet that there were only 129 cases of the virus in the U.S. - but that number is a result of the tiny number of tests which have so far taken place.

The CDC says six states are not currently testing for coronavirus but are 'in progress': Alabama, Maine, Ohio, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming. But MaineHealth said it has begun testing and is sending samples to the CDC

Instead, doctors had to send samples off to the Centers for Disease Control for confirmation.

'As more Americans take an interest in this or have concerns about this, we want to make sure they have access to the coronavirus test as well and we've made real progress on that in the last several days,' Pence continued in remarks at the manufacturing plant in Minnesota.

In Washington D.C. the surgeon general, Jerome Adams, refused to answer questions from reporters but did appear on Fox News where he was not asked about testing kits.

So far 12 Americans have died after contracting coronavirus – 11 in Washington state and one in California.

There are more than 150 confirmed cases in the U.S. as of Wednesday as the president continues to downplay the outbreak.

The nation's top immunologist at National Institute of Health, Anthony Fauci, said the virus has reached 'pandemic proportions.'

Promises of accurate testing results come after changes have been made to the kits – but the news is accompanied by confusion over the messaging of when they will become available for use.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephan Hahn earlier this week told senators during a hearing that the U.S. would be able to perform 1 million tests by the end of this week, which Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar backed up during a White House briefing Wednesday.

Pence also said at the Wednesday briefing that 1.5 million tests would be going out this week.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF CORONAVIRUS? Like other coronaviruses, including those that cause the common cold and that triggered SARS, COVID-19 is a respiratory illness. The most common symptoms are:

Fever

Dry cough

Shortness of breath

Difficulty breathing

Fatigue Although having a runny nose doesn't rule out coronavirus, it doesn't thus far appear to be a primary symptom. Most people only become mildly ill, but the infection can turn serious and even deadly, especially for those who are older or have underlying health conditions. In these cases, patients develop pneumonia, which can cause: Potentially with yellow, green or bloody mucus

Fever, sweating and shaking chills

Shortness of breath

Rapid or shallow breathing

Pain when breathing, especially when breathing deeply or coughing

Low appetite, energy and fatigue

Nausea and vomiting (more common in children)

Confusion (more common in elderly people)

Some patients have also reported diarrhea and kidney failure has occasionally been a complication. Avoid people with these symptoms. If you develop them, call your health care provider before going to the hospital or doctor, so they and you can prepare to minimize possible exposure if they suspect you have coronavirus. Advertisement

But that claim fell apart Thursday as senators revealed that the testing kits would not be delivered in the capacity promised.

'There won't be a million people to get a test by the end of the week,' Republican Senator Rick Scott said Thursday, according to Bloomberg News.

'It's way smaller than that. And still, at this point, it's still through public health departments.'

While the government is 'in the process' of sending kits out, lawmakers said the process could take days to weeks as people are trained on how to use them.

'By the end of the week they're getting them out to the mail,' Republican Senator James Lankford said. 'It's going to take time to be able to get them, receive them, re-verify them and then be able to put them into use.'

The issue is affecting people around the country, with the CDC saying six states are currently not testing for coronavirus.

The federal health agency published a map of all states and territories with at least one laboratory using diagnostic tests for the disease.

Almost every states is listed as currently testing for coronavirus, except Alabama, Maine, Ohio, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Those six states are currently listed as being 'in progress,' according to the map key.

However, MaineHealth announced that it has begun testing and is sending samples to the CDC.

Maine say it has begun testing and is sending swabs from test kits to the CDC.

Oklahoma's Department of Health announced on Tuesday that it plans to do its own coronavirus testing.

The Ohio Department of Health says it will be conducted its own testing later this week and Alabama and Wyoming say they're in the process of setting up their laboratories.

Meanwhile, Washington state officials are urging patience as medical staff report fear and anger among people told they could not be tested for the coronavirus due to limited capacity.

Clinics in the Seattle area reported an increase in patients seeking tests after the state reported 39 cases of coronavirus and 10 deaths.

Health officials and front-line medical staff in Seattle's King County, the location of most cases, asked mildly sick people to stay home rather than inundate clinics and hospitals for tests and risk infecting others.

Thousands of passengers are currently on the Grand Princess cruise ship that was banned on Wednesday from returning to its home port of San Francisco from a voyage to Hawaii amid the suspected coronavirus outbreak (file image)

'We know there is huge demand out there for testing, we know there are a lot of people in our state who are sick and they want to know if they have [coronavirus],' state health officer Kathy Lofy said at a news conference.

'I want to tell you we are doing everything possible to expand testing capacity here in our state.'

Nurse practitioner Paula Ruedebusch, who works at an urgent care clinic in the Seattle suburb of Monroe, asked patients not to take out frustrations on front-line medical staff.

'We have had patients presenting here, angry that they cannot be tested for COVID-19, yelling, cussing, throwing their dirty mask at us and even spitting their secretions on the floor and walls on their way out,' Ruedebusch wrote on Facebook.

'Please don't do that. We are not the ones making the decisions here, we are just the ones trying to triage, manage and treat those who are sick and injured...and, that is just gross.