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US admits 'failing' on testing, says Fauci

bbc.com

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Re: US admits 'failing' on testing, says Fauci

#51

Post by bluGill »

stevenwoo wrote: post #39
chrisco255 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone want guess at how difficult it is to ramp up testing to a population of 320 million for a disease that didn't exist 4 months ago?

Italy and South Korea managed to scale up widespread testing and their economies are proportionately much smaller than the USA for their population.

The chemicals needed to do a test are in short supply. I would assume Italy and South Korea used a lot of the supply, meaning less for anyone else. Italy of course clearly needed all they used (and more), while Korea could be argued used to much. Note that latter is a no-win situation - nobody knows exactly how much testing is needed, either you test what is probably too much or you don't test enough.

Or you can not test, and treat everybody as infected. For hospitals and high risks people you should be doing that anyway.

Re: US admits 'failing' on testing, says Fauci

#52

Post by ceejayoz »

doubleunplussed wrote: post #40
ajross wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point does it become OK to point out that the "orange man" is, in fact, bad? Fox news and republican leaders spent weeks (weeks that we can't get back) trying to tell people that this wasn't a problem, that they shouldn't prepare, and that this was all a partisan argument against the president. And that was all wrong. It's real, it's happening, and we've lost critical time. That's bad, right? And it's bad in…

Orange man is bad, but a stopped clock is right twice a day, and falling over themselves to deny whenever that happens has led the media to say all manner of braindead things.

> a stopped clock is right twice a day

Without another working clock, that's still not super useful, as you can't figure out when it's right.

Re: US admits 'failing' on testing, says Fauci

#53

Post by bluGill »

Lewton wrote: post #46
chrisco255 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone want guess at how difficult it is to ramp up testing to a population of 320 million for a disease that didn't exist 4 months ago?

The ability to test for this scales linearly with number of people...

Not when you run out of raw materials to make the tests. I could leave my job and create them, but that would take months to train me (and maybe years if I have to create my own equipment - it takes time to become a certified welder as just one task that doesn't scale quickly)

Re: US admits 'failing' on testing, says Fauci

#54

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

allovernow wrote: post #33
tlb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offering a diagnostic test without FDA approval is illegal, for good reason (there would be companies far worse than Theranos) but clearly in an emergency regulators need to adapt.

You're not considering the upside of relaxing these regulations. There are far more legitimate labs than there are theranoses.

You're not considering that a big part of the reason for that might be due to the regulations!

Re: US admits 'failing' on testing, says Fauci

#55

Post by snapetom »

surge wrote: post #44
snapetom wrote: post #25

I have a hard time faulting the CDC for the response overall, but I just don't understand why they decided to make their own test at the beginning. Was it bravado? Did they think the 70% accuracy of the WHO test wasn't good enough? If they didn't make their own test, they wouldn't have fubarred the manufacturing, which would have given us more tests. One of the CDC's main goals, if not the main goal in this, is to sp…

The test accuracy of the WHO test as far as I understood it was good if someone was already experiencing symptoms once viral load was high enough. The bigger issue was false negatives, people would get released from quarantine measures, then spread it (like the cruise ship). They recommended anyone within contact to self quarantine until symptoms had reached a point they could get a definitive test. At this point tes…

> In summary, the testing early doesn't change the decision tree, which is stay quarantined for 14 days, until symptoms present or not, so little point was seen to testing until then.

That makes a ton of sense. Thank you!

Re: US admits 'failing' on testing, says Fauci

#56

Post by vmh1928 »

wbl wrote: post #27
tlb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offering a diagnostic test without FDA approval is illegal, for good reason (there would be companies far worse than Theranos) but clearly in an emergency regulators need to adapt.

That's not true for tests developed in the lab they are used in.

In Arizona, Mayo Clinic, Sonora Quest Laboratories, and the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Flagstaff are rolling out their own tests. Official test kits from the CDC are in woefully short supply, under 200 right now, and only being used for people showing significant symptoms. According to a news article the new tests will use a technique similar to the CDC test known as reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, otherwise shortened to RT-PCR

Re: US admits 'failing' on testing, says Fauci

#58

Post by belltaco »

beamatronic wrote: post #12
pgrote wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What in the world is going on with the tests? It appears the main driver has been lack of chemicals and in the beginning, the cdc required tests to be sent to them. The states can now test on their own. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/12/21175034/co...

There was a technical issue, and a policy issue.

There was literally a policy not to allow states to use testing from other countries. And also to restrict testing a lot, early on. Even India started aggressively testing many travelers long before.

Re: US admits 'failing' on testing, says Fauci

#59

Post by ssully »

pgrote wrote: post #6
Reedx wrote: post #2

Sounds like he's being too honest. Expect him to be replaced imminently. Seriously, how are we so bad at this? We knew it was coming and South Korea has been testing 10k/day since Feb, so it's clearly doable. We've done <10k total! What in the world is going on with the tests?

>What in the world is going on with the tests? It appears the main driver has been lack of chemicals and in the beginning, the cdc required tests to be sent to them. The states can now test on their own. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/12/21175034/co...

Even so, I will echo the OPs main point of the USA had a head start and did nothing with it. These shortages and policies could have been reviewed and resolved back in January or even February.
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