This article was first published at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Experts and officials are wary of learning from China because “it’s not a democracy”, but actually it’s more similar to the US than countries like South Korea and Singapore in terms of population, structure of different levels of government, etc.
Of course there’s opposition to a broader testing regimen. Policies based on evidence, science and sound reasoning require it. What else would we expect from these fools?
If you test only people “who have a problem” then it is already too late. Here in eastern MA we have not had mass testing yet but hospitals are already running out of supplies and space. Our local hospital requested the publics help with supplies days ago. My wife as well as many others have spent the last three days at her sewing machine making masks for hospital workers. She said today that the she had trouble getting more elastic material to continue making them. What the hell is going to happen when this thing peaks?
The main driver of the conflicting thoughts isn’t actually a conflicting thought.
New York would love to be able to test everyone, every day (after all, just because you’re clear today doesn’t mean you are tomorrow).
But there’s a lack of both tests and the ability to process them.
When the availability of tests finally started ramping up last week, it promptly overwhelmed the capacity of laboratories to process them, creating massive backlogs of over a week.
With backlogs like that, if you’re asymptomatic, you’ll either be basically in the clear anyway, or have gotten sick and sought treatment, regardless of the results.
Once capacity for testing and testing supplies even out over time, you’ll see the official advice change and become mass-testing.
“Local context is all important. In New York City, today, you should not get tested if you have mild symptoms.”
The reason, he said, is that the health care systems in places like New York, Los Angeles and Seattle are about to be overwhelmed by a wave of people seriously ill from COVID-19.
Catch 22…meanwhile, someone more concern about Wallstreet $$$ is toying with the herd immunity/KAG (Killing Geriatric Americans) are ok is going to complicate finding the epicenter in the US!
Oops…I meant
KAG = Killing American Geriatrics
This bizarre idea, given what we know about this bug, that we should only test people who display symptoms, is a mistake, one driven by Trump’s failure to rally the federal government to obtain testing kits. They’re, once again, telling us “by the end of this week.” We heard that in late February.
It’s a manufactured dilemma to justify incompetence.
It’s not manufactured, it’s a real constraint, we’re two months behind where we should be in ramping up, that’s all on trump.
Laboratories aren’t going to sit around on tons of excess equipment, personnel or capacity in normal times, that would be bad business.
Which is why we’re supposed to have a government that can invest in big stockpiles for emergencies, since they aren’t concerned about quarterly profits. Sadly, we get a government who cares more about tax cuts for billionaires…
No disagreement. I know the problem is real but it’s been treated as something normal. That shouldn’t be the case so many weeks into the outbreak. It’s a result of incompetence.
That is totally true.
This is a cascade failure, pure and simple. COVID-19 was coming to the US no matter what. The result could have been anywhere on a 1-10 scale depending on how much planning was done and the quality of that plan’s execution.
But there was no plan, except Trump’s PR step of halting flights from China, which he either wrongly thought would be enough, or more likely enough for a later PR strategy. And while a pandemic was a common model for disaster response planning, they didn’t do it and figured they’d just take their chances and wing it.
Early testing deployment probably would have reduced the economic impact because those who contracted the virus could be isolated while those found negative without contact could go about their business, perhaps with reduced activity. There would still be some economic slowing, but nothing like what we’ll have now. But Trump didn’t want testing widely deployed because then the numbers would go up, the market would go down, and he’d lose the PR battle anyway. His administration was not prepared, and Trump had already shot his mouth off too much to turn back.
Now, Trump and his minions are ready to march us all off to battle the virus on our own in hopes of saving the economy only in tatters because of his administration’s lack of planning and execution, and his own PR efforts to minimize the risk. It won’t work because hardly anybody would choose to sign up for this war. Some people may ignore the risks, or flaunt them like Trump does, or decide they are better off accepting the risk to themselves and others out of desperation to survive economically.
But it comes back to that cascade failure. Trump’s incompetence and ego and self-interest and utter lack of concern for anyone else’s life and health gave us this disaster. No wonder he’s willing to gamble our lives and livelihoods to attempt to prove he was right all along. He’ll claim it either way, so he can count me OUT.
I wish I could like that 1000 times.
I am hopeful that there are CDC epidemiologists in China, and, particularly in South Korea right now. In fact, all over the world. It would be helpful to be gathering as much data on their testing protocols, and follow-up testing in the population, both those who were confirmed COVID-19 cases, and those were tested negative. Are they doing serological tests (blood tests) after the fact? At what intervals? The world is one big laboratory right now. The quicker we learn about the natural history of this disease, the better will be our ability to manage the disease, treat, and protect (vaccinate) in the future.
If you’re in a hot spot and start showing symptoms, just ASSUME you have Covid and self isolate. As much as you can. Testing in that situation is actually useless other than as an admissions confirmation. When you’re there, being clear this morning doesn’t mean you’ll be clear tonight.
However, outside of the hot spots, THAT’S how you identify and isolate using basic epidemiological tools. And the most basic tool in preventing spread is testing. The lack of tests is absolutely unforgivable. It’s like fighting a fire, you concentrate your efforts on controlling the spread. It’s just that this fire is invisible.
OT, but this gave me a much-needed smile…
It is a huge scandal and am glad reporters are still covering it. Lock him up!
Good. Burr is going to need that $1.7 million just for legal fees.
The testing and post-testing analysis will make this virus much more visible to us (scientific, medical, and public health fields.)
There is no paradox.
To explain, let’s refer to the solution written by Tomas Pueyo in Medium:
Here is the key graph:
You test when in the before-Hammer and the Dance stages of an outbreak.
You don’t bother testing during the Hammer stage (as all spare medical capacity and personnel must be dedicated to the rising caseload).
America is currently in the Hammer.
We need to increase test capacity rapidly to be prepared for the Dance, but the focus right now needs to be on Hospital capacity and #FlattenTheCurve.