Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

"Everybody that wants a test gets a test" part 2. No more true than it was the last time. We still have substantial restrictions as to who is eligible for testing, as pointed out in those articles. We still have issues with reagents, which you also denied the last time it happened (falsely again).

The French have not responded to this well either, BTW. Germany, Canada, Australia, and South Korea all did considerably better than either the US or France.

 

Nobody claimed there is a waiting list. I can see that you decided to move the goal posts. But yes, there are still shortages of tests here. Let me know if you find a bit of evidence to dispute that, but so far all of your yelling about it has done no such thing.

 

Oddly, I agree with Trump here.

 

Guess I need to fix this.

 

Bacon

 

I fixed it. We can’t use that word here. This is a classy place

 

It would be completely foolish for the CDC to not prioritize testing at this stage. If every Tom, Dick and Harry who wanted a test went and got one, our labs would be overwhelmed and there WOULD be a waiting list for people to get tested, because we do not have the capacity to test that many people in a short period of time. No country does. Of course, they're not going to let you get a test for a little cough. They're only going to want to test you if you show more serious symptoms. That's wise. Because as it stands, roughly 80% of the people that have been tested are negative. You'd be tying up resources unnecessarily and that would then keep people who really have the virus from being tested more swiftly.

As it stands today, we've tested double the amount of the next highest country. We appear to have peaked and are turning the tide. There is not a silver bullet to this. There never has been one. Every country is being rocked by it. If France, who supposedly has the best healthcare in the world couldn't handle it, I'm not sure why you think we or any other nation would be able to. And we are not South Korea. We do not have the history of pandemics that country has. They do not have nearly the amount of international transit the U.S. has. And they are largely a homogenous society that tend to be very health conscious compared to your average American. They were more willing to accept a more firm lock down and that helped them to limit the spread. Great for them, but we are not South Korea and never will be no matter who is president.

All of these false narratives you keep perpetuating from your Monday morning QB recliner in your basement are nothing more than leftist talking points meant to harm the administration. None of them are based in reality. Of course, I can't just trot into my physician's office and say "hey dude, I want a Covid test." It would be selfish of me to do so unless I had a very legitimate reason to be there and my doctor gave the recommendation to be tested. There are people out there who are really sick who need that test. I do not know a single person or friend of a person in my professional sphere or familial sphere who have taken those steps and had to wait any amount of time to get tested. All in all, we're capable of testing the individuals doctors feel need to be tested.

 

I never said there was a list. I said as powerful as the US is and with its large production capacity, we should be pumping out millions of tests. As a country, we should be testing at a much higher percentage than 1%. And saying we are doing better than other countries doesn't mean anything, damn right we should be doing better than other countries. Much, much better. We should not be on par with smaller countries.

 

This makes zero sense. If there were any more than a negligible amount of people who needed to be tested (ie recommended by a doctor), who couldn't get tested right away, then logic dictates there would be a waiting list. I highly doubt those doctors are saying "so bad so sad, Chuck. We don't have any tests available right now, so you're on your own, buddy. Hope ya make it." You probably have a few odd cases here and there where people need a test and have to wait a few days. I would venture to say that happens in just about every area of medicine. The overall picture is different than that and you well know this.

 

Not a good sign for the prospect of reopening soon absent truly widespread testing availability.

Testing Reveals 'Stunning' Asymptomatic Coronavirus Spread Among Boston's Homeless

 

Schocked, a lack of available tests to test those in shelters. Seems like a running theme around here.

 

Based on what exactly? Germany is the highest percentage wise of a decent size nation and they've tested 2% of their pop. Most countries are hovering around the 1% mark. Why would the U.S., with more people than most other countries need to have a higher percentage of people tested? Again France, the gold standard in healthcare, numero uno, king of the jungle, the prototype.. France has only tested 0.5% of their pop. Was it a lie to say they had the best healthcare system? Yes? No? Maybe? Clearly you are setting expectations for the U.S. under Mr. Trump that even the gold standard in healthcare France isn't meeting. That's honestly quite ridiculous.

 

I wish we had a contest to see which state would crack first under the pressure--I was going to pick Michigan. Michigan residents commit to fighting in the coronavirus war . . . on the side of coronavirus! They absolutely, positively, will NOT stay home and are demanding a recall of the governor that wants them to do just that. Some of these protestors seem to be rabid Trump supporters, but don't seem to know that Trump supports these stay at home orders. They say they are willing to die to protect their "freedom".

Thousands converge to protest Michigan governor's stay-home order in 'Operation Gridlock'

Just when you think things can't get any more bizarre . . .

 

This is why prioritizing testing will not accomplish what the goal is. If you just test the severe ill or privileged, we don’t get s good picture of what the spread is because it is not statistically valid. It is not random.

 

I agree that priority should be given to those who show symptoms and a treatment can be started. The general population in this country is not that smart as proved by the amount of stupidity that gets reshared across social media without a single shred of evidence. These idiots will line up stronger than any Black Friday sale and overwhelm the medical infrastructure we have.

 

If the goal is treatment, yes. If the goal is to prevent infection (the reason we have stay at home orders to begin with), that may be ineffective. See the article I posted above.

 

I think the antibody test will be the determine factor in reopening the economy. A negative test on the current spectrum only shows you have recovered or not caught it yet. Relying on that test to make a determination is dangerous.

 

The problem is that people without symptoms or with fairly minor symptoms are potentially contagious, which is why we need social distancing. There are countries that have figured out how to test the asymptomatic and those with minimal symptoms.

Temporal dynamics in viral shedding and transmissibility of COVID-19

We also have 4x the population of the next highest country in raw tests. We are the third largest country in the world and #1 and #2 both have highly unreliable data. We should have considerably more testing than anywhere. That doesn't indicate a lack of a shortage in testing.

Highly questionable. The last two days have been record high death totals. And given the fact that we aren't testing people, our numbers as to how many have the virus are not accurate counts of disease spread either.

Not really true. Every country has had some death from it. However, there are numerous countries with far lower per capita death rates than we do, even those that appear to be much further along in their curve. We have the tenth highest death rate of any reasonable sized country in the world. South Korea's death rate is 1/21 of our death rate. Australia's is 1/43 of our death rate. Canada is about 1/3 of our death rate despite sharing a huge border with us.

So much for American exceptionalism. I bet you never could have guessed that you would have had to rely on "Well France couldn't do it, so what chance did we have" as an argument.

They have a ton of international transit (Seoul would be the 5th largest airport in the US) and are more urban than we are (which makes distancing more difficult). Their lockdown was less firm than our lockdown.

I was talking about the lack of testing being a major problem long ago. I stated that we seemed to be avoiding the truth with a lack of testing on this very thread on March 7. Hard to call it Monday morning quarterbacking when I was saying it more than a week before everything blew up.

Only selfish if there is...a shortage in tests.

We have had multiple people on this board discuss the length of time to get testing and the absurd procedures.

Frankly, that isn't true. From a public health perspective, we need to be running several versions of testing if the goal is to re-open the economy:

Random distributed testing to track disease spread and estimate actual infection rates, tracking of people who have been in contact with positive cases, and the current testing to estimate needs for healthcare needs.

 

I had an antibody test a week ago Monday while I had sinus issues and had run a fever. This was as part of the University of Miami study. Here is what they told me. Antibodies do not show up in tests on the early stages of the disease. They show up in the middle or later stages. So, a person can be infected and still not show either of the antibodies. The “gold standard” test for active infection is the nasal swab.

 

In many places, the guidance is to clinically diagnose still if you have no risk factors. So you say, you have symptoms, you probably have this, isolate for two weeks.