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Does anyone know actual facts about testing in the US? Yes, the CDC's tests were flawed, but ... 1) Other countries don't have a problem testing millions of people, so why doesn't the US use the same tests they do? 2) 3.5 weeks ago the Trump admin promised 1 million tests that week with many more to follow soon thereafter. After all this time they still haven't materialized, so what happened to the million tests? 3)…
Where was the media in this? Lots of scare stories about potential pandemics back to January, in the US media, but I dont recall much if any "the CDC is fucking up / not testing" coverage. Of course that kind of thing was probably being said in the froth of the fringe and conspiracy theorists, but thats all "fake news" and unmentionable now.
We live in an environment where the signal to noise ratio has been deliberately polluted by politicians to the point where actual signal is being lost. Everything that disagrees with the ruling regime, calls out incompetence, or is even slightly embarrassing, is "fake news". We've entered a scary time, indeed.
I don't know if your wording was intentional, but your comment gives the impression that you think this was "scare stories", when clearly, in retrospect, they were warnings. We should have listened. Some did. Leadership clearly did not.
The pandemic is getting worse and we're ramping up the finger-pointing. Instead, we should be listening to experts, mounting effective response, and holding leaders accountable. We continue to fail on that last point and shoot messengers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This lacklustre response is still going on, the federal government simply isn’t taking this seriously. Trump saying things will open up in just a few weeks and it’s important to restart the economy will cost thousands of lives by encouraging states not to lock down. Full lock down is now the only way out, and as it has spread, that will take months. Testing needs to massively ramp up too. 2000 people died in one day…
There's a line in the Big Short: "Whenever unemployment drops 1%, 40,000 people die". Surprisingly; this is more or less true, not movie drama. Its obviously difficult to draw causation between these two things, but there is causation. People have reduced access to healthcare. They have anxiety and depression from staying inside and being unable to socialize. They aren't working out as much. They can't take care of their family.
Let me present you this: People need N95 masks. Thank goodness, 3M is now churning out millions of them. But, wait... 3M is a company, but its staffed with people. So, those people need to go back to work, right? Those people need to drive to work, so they need gas stations, maybe even car maintenance. They need food, so supermarkets and restaurants need to stay open. Apply the same to people working in pharma factories, or our heroic healthcare workers, or many other industries.
The United States does not have a system that can stop. Some countries are built to be more resilient to stopping, and can do so over short periods of time. The United States is not one of them. If we don't get the economy started again, soon, people will die because we stopped the economy. Its a catch-22. There is no right way out, except to, hopefully, be more prepared and cautious the next time this comes around. But that doesn't help us today.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is going to drive future pandemic prevention and response. We better get this right. The death rate and demographic impact of this virus means humanity is not going to be wiped out. The next one could be more severe.
This article does not mention the WHO offered tests to the US before the CDC decided it should make its own[1]. This alone should have been enough to bring impeachment charges against public officials, for criminal neglect. If the WHO had proven these in China, and you have no other alternative, it make sense to do both 1. buy tests you know are in active use and 2. make your own tests if needed. Someone at the CDC m…
What’s your point? The WHO lost all credibility. As late as January 14, 2020 the WHO tweeted that there is NO evidence of human to human transmission of covid-19 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=20
I'm also surprised that there isn't more talk about the sensitivity of the standard nasopharyngeal swab + RT-PCR. When the FDA approved it, they showed it's extremely accurate... if you use swabs saturated with the virus at various concentrations. Then I read about the poor (70-80%) sensitivity in the real-world, which isn't suprising considering you (1) have variably expert technique in positioning swabs into uncomf…
Are you aware of the difference between 4^x and 1^x?
This article does not mention the WHO offered tests to the US before the CDC decided it should make its own[1]. This alone should have been enough to bring impeachment charges against public officials, for criminal neglect. If the WHO had proven these in China, and you have no other alternative, it make sense to do both 1. buy tests you know are in active use and 2. make your own tests if needed. Someone at the CDC m…
You get to save people first, and save face later.
When they tried testing in NYC they got sick people to stand in line with people who just think they might be sick, which causes the not sick people to be sick.
Yep, there's something that just screams "wake up and use your head" about that. It happened in Australia as well. Have people just lost their ability to think?
Where was the media in this? Lots of scare stories about potential pandemics back to January, in the US media, but I dont recall much if any "the CDC is fucking up / not testing" coverage. Of course that kind of thing was probably being said in the froth of the fringe and conspiracy theorists, but thats all "fake news" and unmentionable now.
Because in the initial days, the CDC had a valid point. The W.H.O/Chinese test wasn't that reliable (at the time) and it wasn't unreasonable for the US to make their own. It wasn't until week after week went by, with the CDC straight up lying to the FDA/HHS, that the real failure became apparent. The second the CDC realized it wasn't up to the job, it should have begged the FDA to allow labs/companies to make their o…
How would this be an excuse not to start using the WHO tests while the CDC was developing theirs? Even if the test was hot garbage (as you imply), surely something is better than nothing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This lacklustre response is still going on, the federal government simply isn’t taking this seriously. Trump saying things will open up in just a few weeks and it’s important to restart the economy will cost thousands of lives by encouraging states not to lock down. Full lock down is now the only way out, and as it has spread, that will take months. Testing needs to massively ramp up too. 2000 people died in one day…
There is a very real, if hidden, cost to economic suppression, especially in the United States where social safety nets are few and far between. There's a line in the Big Short: "Whenever unemployment drops 1%, 40,000 people die". Surprisingly; this is more or less true, not movie drama. Its obviously difficult to draw causation between these two things, but there is causation. People have reduced access to healthcar…
Please find me a state in this country where gas stations and supermarkets have been closed, or a PPE factory that has been shuttered. Everyone knows that there are important things that can't be turned off. It hasn't been turned off, anywhere. That isn't what people are arguing about. Trump wants people to go sit in movie theaters or fly somewhere and stay in one of his hotels.