"Slow the testing down, please"

So back on coronavirus news, Trump appears to have a vaguely negative, but still ambiguous, opinion on testing for the virus.

The most recent episode has to do with this statement at the Tulsa rally: "When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down, please.'"

Fauci denied that Trump ever directed a slowing of testing. Press Secretary McEnany said that Trump was just joking and also denied that Trump ever directed a slow of testing. But then soon after when asked directly if he was actually kidding, Trump said "I don't kid" and then again repeated how testing is a "double-edged sword" because it uncovers more covid cases.

It's hard, but I'm going to take a stab at interpreting this charitably. Trump is concerned that more testing is encouraging baseless hysteria because it is uncovering asymptomatic covid cases that do not translate into any real harm, and instead tie up medical resources needlessly. I think this is reasonable. In fact, this guidance shows up in other areas, most notably with Herpes Simplex Virus where the consensus among the medical establishment is against testing. But there's a reason for that, namely that HSV is nearly always either benign or with negligible symptoms, but unfortunately it is paired with a disproportionate social stigma which translates into severe despondency among people who find out they have it. Basically, doctors are implicitly wishing for a world where no one cared about HSV, because the reaction against it is disproportionate to the harm the virus imposes, and not testing is a way to get there. Reading between the lines, more people getting infected with HSV is also a surefire way to eventually eliminate the taboo. Choosing a world where HSV is controlled, but a minority is vilified is inferior to a world where everyone has HSV but no one cares.

However, Trump's actions and other statements belie this charitable interpretation. The straightforward conclusion is that Trump does not like testing because more cases would make him look bad. HSV and covid are different in hopefully obvious ways, namely that the vector of transmission is far higher for covid (because it doesn't require intimate oral or sexual contact) which widens the potential number of vulnerable recipients and the harm is far more serious. That would change the calculus on the benefit of testing. The very uncharitable interpretation is that Trump would prefer a world where covid cases are low, even if it translates into a higher death rate. It's a form of see-no-evil.

Why I even entertain that interpretation is because it is in accord with his other statements, especially with regards to the Grand Princess cruise ship in early March. He explicitly said that he did not want the passengers to disembark onto US soil because: "I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."

The evidence appears overwhelming that a significant portion of his concern is optics. There is, of course, a basis for an executive to worry about optics as part of a strategy of mitigating mass panic, but it does not strike me as at all plausible in this case. If you have a different interpretation, what is it based on?