Coronavirus swab factory to toss swabs made during Trump visit

President Trump visits Puritan Medical Products on Friday. (Patrick Semansky/AP Photo)

They’re manufacturing controversy and coronavirus tests.

A Maine factory will throw out all coronavirus swabs made during President Trump’s visit Friday, USA Today reported. Factory officials did not explain why they’re tossing the tests.

Puritan Medical Products in Guilford, Maine, scheduled “limited” production during Trump’s visit, according to USA Today. But any swabs seen in the background of Trump’s short trip will not be used.

A Maine factory will throw out all coronavirus swabs made during President Trump’s visit Friday, USA Today reported. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Puritan’s Maine factory is one of the largest manufacturers of coronavirus test nasal swabs in the world, the Bangor Daily News reported. The plant received $75.5 million from the federal government to increase production.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, asked Trump not to visit at all, according to USA Today. Maine’s congressional delegation, made up of Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, along with Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden, was not invited to the tour and therefore did not appear.

Trump did not wear a mask during the visit, always happy to remind people that the Centers for Disease Control recommends but does not require people to wear them.

Nearly 110,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins. About 100 of those deaths have occurred in Maine.