{"id":3078,"date":"2020-07-16T11:45:10","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T11:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3078"},"modified":"2020-07-16T11:45:10","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T11:45:10","slug":"covid-19-testing-in-the-us-is-abysmal-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3078","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19 testing in the US is abysmal. Again."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Covid-19 testing in the US improved dramatically over the first half of 2020, but things now appear to be breaking down once more as coronavirus<\/a> cases rise and outstrip capacity \u2014 to the point that the mayor of a major American city can\u2019t get testing quickly enough to potentially avoid spreading the virus.” 
…
“\u201cBasically, two things are happening,\u201d Ashish Jha, faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI), told me. \u201cOne is the outbreaks are getting much bigger, so the amount of testing we need to get our arms around the outbreak is going up. And second, what we did [before] was some tweaking on capacity issues to get ourselves up to 500,000 to 600,000 tests a day, but didn\u2019t fundamentally address the supply chain problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added, \u201cThis was supposed to be the job of the White House. \u2026 But they just never have prioritized really building up a robust testing infrastructure for the country.\u201d”…
“The benchmark of 500,000 tests per day was particularly important, as it was the minimum experts had long called for in order to get the pandemic in the US under control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as the country neared that benchmark, attention to testing seemed to plummet. The Trump administration, which had already delegated testing down to lower levels of government and private actors, especially appeared to lose interest: The country\u2019s \u201ctesting czar,\u201d Brett Giroir, stood down<\/a> and went back to his regular job at the Department of Health and Human Services. Trump falsely<\/a> claimed in May that \u201cAmerica leads the world in testing\u201d; at his Tulsa rally in June, he said<\/a> he told his people to \u201cslow the testing down\u201d because the rising case count made him look bad. (He later asserted that his statement at the rally was not a joke, despite White House officials insisting it was.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As all this happened, many of the underlying problems with testing capacity remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For one, there\u2019s still a lot of variation between states. While most states, as of July 8, had 150 new tests per 100,000 people per day \u2014 the equivalent to 500,000 daily tests nationwide \u2014 18 states still didn\u2019t<\/a>.”…
“Earlier on, the hurdles with testing were linked to supply chain problems<\/a>: not enough swabs to collect samples, vials to store them, or reagents and kits to run the tests. Over time, those problems were fixed or worked around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue, experts say, is that these kinds of problems were always bound to come back as testing demand increased. Fixing a bottleneck for kits may let the country get to 500,000 tests a day, but that bottleneck can easily come back if, for instance, the nation needs 1 million per day and there are only enough kits for 700,000.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“labs aren\u2019t sure that making the massive investment for way more tests is financially sustainable, he explained, especially as Covid-19 outbreaks ebb and flow \u2014 and, as a result, occasionally deplete demand for those tests, as well as the number of people who need them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ideally, the federal government would be in charge of handling these problems. It\u2019s the one entity that can go to labs across the country, see what the holdups are, then work along the global supply chain to see what can be done to address the issues. It has the funding ability to ensure labs and suppliers remain whole. And it can prioritize limited resources to specific cities, counties, or states that need them most, instead of leaving these supplies to a free-for-all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is, in fact, what the federal government does with other issues \u2014 such as when it ensures that a manufacturer has all the parts needed for an order of guns, tanks, or jets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Trump administration, however, has described<\/a> the federal government as a \u201csupplier of last resort.\u201d That\u2019s very different from the kind of proactive approach the feds take on other issues to get ahead of supply constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the problem is left to private actors as well as local and state governments, which often face legal, financial, and practical constraints that hinder their ability to move quickly. And the problem persists, even as Covid-19 cases continue to rise.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Lockdowns, however, were also supposed to buy the nation time to build up its testing system. As Natalie Dean, a biostatistics professor at the University of Florida, previously told me<\/a>, \u201cThe whole point of this social distancing is to buy us time to build up capacity to do the types of public health interventions we know work. If we\u2019re not using this time to scale up testing to the level that we need it to be \u2026 we don\u2019t have an exit strategy. And then when we lift things, we\u2019re no better equipped than we were before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s now clear that the US didn\u2019t take full advantage of the time it bought with lockdowns. While testing did dramatically improve compared to the early days of the pandemic, it\u2019s still not at a point where America can handle the higher demand brought on by another surge in coronavirus cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pathetic. This is not how a first-world country functions,\u201d Jha said. \u201cThat people should not expect to access a test to an infectious disease many, many months into a pandemic \u2014 I find myself amazed that this is where we are as a country.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2020\/7\/10\/21317860\/coronavirus-testing-problems-delays-shortages-covid<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Covid-19 testing in the US improved dramatically over the first half of 2020, but things now appear to be breaking down once more as coronavirus cases rise and outstrip capacity \u2014 to the point that the mayor of a major American city can\u2019t get testing quickly enough to potentially avoid spreading the virus.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“\u201cBasically, two things are happening,\u201d Ashish Jha, faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI), told me. \u201cOne is the outbreaks are getting much bigger, so the amount of testing we need to get our arms around the outbreak is going up. And second, what we did [before] was some tweaking on capacity issues to get ourselves up to 500,000 to 600,000 tests a day, but didn\u2019t fundamentally address the supply chain problems.\u201d
\nHe added, \u201cThis was supposed to be the job of the White House. \u2026 But they just never have prioritized really building up a robust testing infrastructure for the country.\u201d”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The benchmark of 500,000 tests per day was particularly important, as it was the minimum experts had long called for in order to get the pandemic in the US under control.
\nBut as the country neared that benchmark, attention to testing seemed to plummet. The Trump administration, which had already delegated testing down to lower levels of government and private actors, especially appeared to lose interest: The country\u2019s \u201ctesting czar,\u201d Brett Giroir, stood down and went back to his regular job at the Department of Health and Human Services. Trump falsely claimed in May that \u201cAmerica leads the world in testing\u201d; at his Tulsa rally in June, he said he told his people to \u201cslow the testing down\u201d because the rising case count made him look bad. (He later asserted that his statement at the rally was not a joke, despite White House officials insisting it was.)<\/p>\n

As all this happened, many of the underlying problems with testing capacity remained.<\/p>\n

For one, there\u2019s still a lot of variation between states. While most states, as of July 8, had 150 new tests per 100,000 people per day \u2014 the equivalent to 500,000 daily tests nationwide \u2014 18 states still didn\u2019t.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Earlier on, the hurdles with testing were linked to supply chain problems: not enough swabs to collect samples, vials to store them, or reagents and kits to run the tests. Over time, those problems were fixed or worked around.
\nThe issue, experts say, is that these kinds of problems were always bound to come back as testing demand increased. Fixing a bottleneck for kits may let the country get to 500,000 tests a day, but that bottleneck can easily come back if, for instance, the nation needs 1 million per day and there are only enough kits for 700,000.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“labs aren\u2019t sure that making the massive investment for way more tests is financially sustainable, he explained, especially as Covid-19 outbreaks ebb and flow \u2014 and, as a result, occasionally deplete demand for those tests, as well as the number of people who need them.<\/p>\n

Ideally, the federal government would be in charge of handling these problems. It\u2019s the one entity that can go to labs across the country, see what the holdups are, then work along the global supply chain to see what can be done to address the issues. It has the funding ability to ensure labs and suppliers remain whole. And it can prioritize limited resources to specific cities, counties, or states that need them most, instead of leaving these supplies to a free-for-all.<\/p>\n

This is, in fact, what the federal government does with other issues \u2014 such as when it ensures that a manufacturer has all the parts needed for an order of guns, tanks, or jets.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The Trump administration, however, has described the federal government as a \u201csupplier of last resort.\u201d That\u2019s very different from the kind of proactive approach the feds take on other issues to get ahead of supply constraints.<\/p>\n

So the problem is left to private actors as well as local and state governments, which often face legal, financial, and practical constraints that hinder their ability to move quickly. And the problem persists, even as Covid-19 cases continue to rise.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Lockdowns, however, were also supposed to buy the nation time to build up its testing system. As Natalie Dean, a biostatistics professor at the University of Florida, previously told me, \u201cThe whole point of this social distancing is to buy us time to build up capacity to do the types of public health interventions we know work. If we\u2019re not using this time to scale up testing to the level that we need it to be \u2026 we don\u2019t have an exit strategy. And then when we lift things, we\u2019re no better equipped than we were before.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now clear that the US didn\u2019t take full advantage of the time it bought with lockdowns. While testing did dramatically improve compared to the early days of the pandemic, it\u2019s still not at a point where America can handle the higher demand brought on by another surge in coronavirus cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pathetic. This is not how a first-world country functions,\u201d Jha said. \u201cThat people should not expect to access a test to an infectious disease many, many months into a pandemic \u2014 I find myself amazed that this is where we are as a country.\u201d”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[588,409,483,533],"class_list":["post-3078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-corona","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-testing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3079,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions\/3079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}