Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said on Wednesday that his state is trying to prevent deaths from surging due to the federal government’s initial failures in testing for COVID-19.

At a briefing on Minnesota’s coronavirus response efforts, Walz explained why it is “too late to flatten the curve,” referring to the steep increase in infections.

“The objective of everything we’re doing here is — it’s too late to flatten the curve,” the governor said. “The testing regimen was not in place soon enough for us to be able to do that.”

“So what our objective is now is to move the infection rate out, slow it down and buy time,” he continued, pointing to the need for Hospital resources. “If we get to a situation, which we’ve seen in certain parts of the world — and the place we cannot get to is when someone can’t get that ICU care, we see the death rates skyrocket.”

Walz said that he was also focused on a second wave of infections “so that we can flatten the curve” in the future.