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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Atlantic: Exclusive: The Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing 👀
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/
I dont know what went wrong, a former CDC chief told The Atlantic.
ROBINSON MEYER
ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL
11:40 AM ET
Its one of the most urgent questions in the United States right now: How many people have actually been tested for the coronavirus?
This number would give a sense of how widespread the disease is, and how forceful a response to it the United States is mustering. But for days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has refused to publish such a count, despite public anxiety and criticism from Congress. On Monday, Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, estimated that by the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed in the United States. On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence promised that roughly 1.5 million tests would be available this week.
But the number of tests performed across the country has fallen far short of those projections, despite extraordinarily high demand, The Atlantic has found.
<snip>
Through interviews with dozens of public-health officials and a survey of local data from across the country, The Atlantic could only verify that 1,895 people have been tested for the coronavirus in the United States, about 10 percent of whom have tested positive. And while the American capacity to test for the coronavirus has ramped up significantly over the past few days, local officials can still test only several thousand people a day, not the tens or hundreds of thousands indicated by the White Houses promises.
<snip>
The figures we gathered suggest that the American response to the coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, has been shockingly sluggish, especially compared with that of other developed countries. The CDC confirmed eight days ago that the virus was in community transmission in the United Statesthat it was infecting Americans who had neither traveled abroad nor were in contact with others who had. In South Korea, more than 66,650 people were tested within a week of its first case of community transmission, and it quickly became able to test 10,000 people a day. The United Kingdom, which has only 115 positive cases, has so far tested 18,083 people for the virus.
Normally, the job of gathering these types of data in the U.S. would be left to epidemiologists at the CDC. The agency regularly collects and publishes positive and negative test results for several pathogens, including multiple types of the seasonal flu. But earlier this week, the agency announced that it would stop publishing negative results for the coronavirus, an extraordinary step that essentially keeps Americans from knowing how many people have been tested overall.
</snip>
I dont know what went wrong, a former CDC chief told The Atlantic.
ROBINSON MEYER
ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL
11:40 AM ET
Its one of the most urgent questions in the United States right now: How many people have actually been tested for the coronavirus?
This number would give a sense of how widespread the disease is, and how forceful a response to it the United States is mustering. But for days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has refused to publish such a count, despite public anxiety and criticism from Congress. On Monday, Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, estimated that by the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed in the United States. On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence promised that roughly 1.5 million tests would be available this week.
But the number of tests performed across the country has fallen far short of those projections, despite extraordinarily high demand, The Atlantic has found.
<snip>
Through interviews with dozens of public-health officials and a survey of local data from across the country, The Atlantic could only verify that 1,895 people have been tested for the coronavirus in the United States, about 10 percent of whom have tested positive. And while the American capacity to test for the coronavirus has ramped up significantly over the past few days, local officials can still test only several thousand people a day, not the tens or hundreds of thousands indicated by the White Houses promises.
<snip>
The figures we gathered suggest that the American response to the coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, has been shockingly sluggish, especially compared with that of other developed countries. The CDC confirmed eight days ago that the virus was in community transmission in the United Statesthat it was infecting Americans who had neither traveled abroad nor were in contact with others who had. In South Korea, more than 66,650 people were tested within a week of its first case of community transmission, and it quickly became able to test 10,000 people a day. The United Kingdom, which has only 115 positive cases, has so far tested 18,083 people for the virus.
Normally, the job of gathering these types of data in the U.S. would be left to epidemiologists at the CDC. The agency regularly collects and publishes positive and negative test results for several pathogens, including multiple types of the seasonal flu. But earlier this week, the agency announced that it would stop publishing negative results for the coronavirus, an extraordinary step that essentially keeps Americans from knowing how many people have been tested overall.
</snip>
I wish I could post the whole article. The situation is worse than I thought.
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The Atlantic: Exclusive: The Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing 👀 (Original Post)
Dennis Donovan
Mar 2020
OP
bronxiteforever
(9,287 posts)1. Kick and recommend for all to see. FUBAR.
jpak
(41,757 posts)2. K&R
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)3. K and R
Johnny2X2X
(19,060 posts)4. It's too late to stop this from being way worse here than China
Very little is even being done still. The human toll of this is going to be tragic.
You're safer in any other country with the Coronavirus than the US right now.
stopdiggin
(11,302 posts)8. hyperbolic .. and flat wrong! (nt)
procon
(15,805 posts)5. Hiding all the bad news makes the problem go away... right?
Trump's incompetence is killing people and those officials in the govt we would look to for information and safety instructions under past presidents have been corrupted and are no longer reliable.
Tanuki
(14,918 posts)6. Also known as intentionally "making government so small you can drown it
in a bathtub." They're getting the consequences of what they set out to accomplish.
mercuryblues
(14,531 posts)9. They made government so small you could drown it
in a test tube.
spanone
(135,830 posts)7. We have photo ops....that's about it.