Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CDC produced 160,000 tests that were defective. Meanwhile, the FDA did not allow anyone other than the CDC to test for coronavirus. That is the reason why the US was weeks behind on testing.
I don't doubt you, but I'd love it if you posted links to sources for the defective tests and the fact that the FDA didn't allow anyone but the CDC to test.
CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
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Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
#22This whole line of analysis has confused me. The CDC tests, while flawed, were never very numerous, right? Is the contention that if these early tests had worked, they actually would have been sufficient to protect the entire nation? It's seemed to me the problem has more been that we haven't stockpiled supplies over the past few years like South Korea did.
It's exponentially easier to respond to an outbreak the earlier you act, but our early response was hamstrung by the CDC and FDA (and complete apathy from the white house). We could have slowed or halted this in the early stages with better testing. At the least it would have confirmed how much community spread there already was and hopefully prodded the gov, states, and businesses into action sooner. Time matters. I wonder how many people the FDA killed by blocking local tests?
Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Other countries don't have a problem testing millions of people, so why doesn't the US use the same tests they do? Many (most?) countries do have a problem testing people. It's not just the US. I imagine the whole world is competing on some scare resources now and most countries are simply unable to produce millions of these tests (and even masks apparently) in a short time.
The problem is not lack of raw resources, the problem is lack of manufacturing capacity. We had a 2 month lead-up time to get that capacity in place, and we didn't lift a finger.
The US leadership has been deniers of science, and of reality, for quite a long time. Decades.
I know that HN tries to shy away from politics, but this shows that politics has a way of intruding into even the most technical of areas. Large parts of the US seem to be willing to vote for folks who are not reality-based, and it is a problem for making progress.
Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
#24There is obviously an easy solution to this. Blame China. It’s their fault that, while America had a 2 months advance notice, that our leadership could not take this problem seriously. And they let all the infections come in from Europe, which must be why New York exploded in infected cases in the past week.
Please don't take HN threads further into political or national flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Literally no country has tested 1 million people, let alone millions.
> no country has tested 1 million people Well, the country prepared for epidemics just didn't have to test one million people, but still kept it under control: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/how-south-korea-flattened... They were indeed able to use their tests more efficiently than any other country, and to really do a lot of tests compared to any other country: https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a304020000…
Yes, they appear to have done a phenomenal job. Hopefully the rest of the world can learn from some of the things they've done.
Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
#26I just don't see what good is going to come out of worrying about this right now while the world is on fire. Everybody needs to be thinking about how to help in the coming weeks, anything else is a waste of time and mental energy.
There will be plenty of time to analyze what went wrong with the initial response when things calm down. This is just raising the level of angst unnecessarily in my opinion.
Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is the contention that if these early tests had worked, they actually would have been sufficient to protect the entire nation? The contention in the article is that there were multiple, compounding layers of fuck-ups.
> Meanwhile, the FDA did not allow anyone other than the CDC to test for coronavirus. true > there were multiple, compounding layers of fuck-ups. also true All of it is completely true. And the issue is that both of these were blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention to the situation. The CDC was struggling to develop the test, and the FDA regulates who can create tests under normal circumstances. The larger ques…
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Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
#28I just don't see what good is going to come out of worrying about this right now while the world is on fire. Everybody needs to be thinking about how to help in the coming weeks, anything else is a waste of time and mental energy. There will be plenty of time to analyze what went wrong with the initial response when things calm down. This is just raising the level of angst unnecessarily in my opinion.
If you want to come out of a lock-down without also causing the number of cases to spike again, we'll need to implement a widespread test-and-trace protocol similar to South Korea's. This requires _lots and lots_ of testing.
Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is the contention that if these early tests had worked, they actually would have been sufficient to protect the entire nation? The contention in the article is that there were multiple, compounding layers of fuck-ups.
An analogy I used over a “Zoom & Bourbon” meetup last night was that the COVID handling by the US federal government is very similar to aircraft crashes: it’s never just one failure, but a series that cascade (and you invariably “get behind the aircraft” due to being overwhelmed) and lead you to the crash site. We’re almost to the crash site, just a few more weeks to go. Please make every attempt to stay safe and hea…
Are you by any chance describing the Swiss cheese model?
Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Meanwhile, the FDA did not allow anyone other than the CDC to test for coronavirus. true > there were multiple, compounding layers of fuck-ups. also true All of it is completely true. And the issue is that both of these were blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention to the situation. The CDC was struggling to develop the test, and the FDA regulates who can create tests under normal circumstances. The larger ques…
> FDA regulation only allowed the CDC to create a test wondering why this regulation exists and are there any guidelines for extreme situations.
I imagine it’s the same guidelines for most centralized regulations.
People who believe that central control is good. Which is a much larger discussion.