Without More Tests, America Can't Reopen

[Newest Reality]

Without the right tests in the right number to the right people, reopening is going to be a big nightmare, IMHO. One of those, well, in hindsight, that was a really bad idea scenarios. This is obviously an ongoing failure of the federal government under General Trump and his Dancing Madly Backwards Regime.

And to make matters worse, we’re testing the wrong people.

Even as Donald Trump has delineated his plan to relax social distancing, the United States remains very much in the dark about who has the coronavirus and who does not. We have a shortage of COVID-19 tests, and we simultaneously have the highest number of confirmed cases in the world. Consequently, not every American who wants a test can get one. Not every health-care worker can get one. Not even every patient entering a hospital can get one. Because of the shortages, we are rationing tests, and medical facilities and public-health officials are prioritizing the sickest patients for them.

If the goal is to restart the American economy, the United States isn’t performing anywhere near enough tests. Worse still, we are testing the wrong people. To safely reopen closed businesses and revive American social life, we need to perform many more tests—and focus them on the people most likely to spread COVID-19, not sick patients.

COVID-19 testing has been an unmitigated failure in this country. This month, according to the COVID Tracking Project, a data initiative launched by The Atlantic in March, the number of tests performed in the United States has plateaued at about 130,000 to 160,000 a day. Rather than growing rapidly—as all experts think is absolutely necessary—the daily number of tests administered in some jurisdictions has even decreased. In New York, for instance, 10,241 tests were performed on April 6, but supply limits forced a huge drop a few days later to 25 total tests. Quest Diagnostics, one of the two biggest firms that run tests, just furloughed 9 percent of its workforce. In addition, news reports suggest that, as of last week, 90 percent of the 15-minute tests developed by Abbott Laboratories are idle due to a lack of necessary reagents and qualified personnel. Testing bottlenecks such as these are major obstacles to getting Americans out of their homes and back on the job.

How many tests do we need in order to safely relax social-distancing measures, reopen nonessential businesses and schools, and allow large gatherings? According to the Morgan Stanley analyst Matthew Harrison and the Harvard professor Ashish Jha, we should be conducting a minimum of 500,000 tests a day. One of the authors of this article, Paul Romer, has called for the capacity to run 20 million to 30 million tests a day. Even this has been criticized as insufficient for the task of identifying enough of the asymptomatic spreaders to keep the pandemic in check.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/were-testing-the-wrong-people/610234/

[lark]

1. Sp sadly we will open up in a very unsafe manner because drumpf is keeping us from testing.

He doesn't want testing and is doing everything in his power to stop the states from having the ability to continue doing this either. He wants a raging pandemic in Nov. so he can steal the election easier. he's already provoking civil unrest and this is just the start. He wants us terribly sick, no mail in voting, no early voting and closing almost all the precincts in the cities of red states so voting can take many hours. He will seed the lines with paid provocateurs aka white nationalists, KKK, Nazis, who will instigate riots and drumpf will declare martial law and cancel the elections. You think SCOTUS will stop him, I don't.

This is his plan and we have to do everything humanly possible to stop it.

[underpants]

2. It just hit me - trumpians just don't like taking tests

They hated it in school (who didn't?) and they never got over it.

[Wounded Bear]

4. It would be embarrassing to flunk their coronavirus test...

[underpants]

5. You should...

A. Stay home
B. Stay home
C. Stay home
D. All of the above


You have continually been lied to but followed orders like a mindless idiot your entire life. Now, you should...
A. Do that more
B. Wait to be told what to do
C. Rebel in a collective sort of way
D. Too much thinking on this if you ask me

[SheltieLover]

3. Dump's agenda is not to take any action to help or strengthen the USA