CDC heads in the sand?
I was surprised to learn today that fewer than 500 people have been tested for COVID-19 in the US. For comparison, over 6,000 people have been tested in the UK. The US has 5 times the population of the UK, so proportionately the UK has been testing people 60x as often as the US has been.
This seemed strange to me. Really, we've tested fewer than 500 people when we currently have 53 confirmed cases in the US? I asked my public health friend, "Trivia question, how many people have been tested in the US?" He answered the question correctly, under 500. Hmmm. How is this number adequate?
The criteria for getting tested in the US are pretty tight. If you haven't traveled from China within the past 14 days, and you aren't known to have had close contact with a lab-confirmed case within the past 14 days, then you aren't eligible for testing -- and they will not test you.
Furthermore, they also won't test anybody who is asymptomatic -- even if they have had close contact with a lab-confirmed case! Instead they tell asymptomatic high-risk people to monitor themselves for symptoms. It's not like -- hey, I'm worried I might have been exposed to HIV, let me go get an HIV test. It doesn't work that way, you can't just get a COVID-19 test because you or your doctor are worried. The CDC has kept a lid on who is eligible for testing.
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Ten days ago, the CDC announced plans to begin community surveillance for COVID-19 in five US cities -- Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and New York. The plans included setting up routine testing of samples from people with flu-like illnesses who tested negative for influenza. In Singapore, for example, they are already doing this -- everybody with pneumonia in Singapore gets a COVID-19 test.
But there were problems with the CDC's test kits, so this testing has not yet begun in the US ...
The US could be missing the spread of COVID-19 within its borders by refusing to test people who have no links to known cases, and by refusing to test asymptomatic people who do have links to known cases. By the time we have a noticeable cluster of pneumonia deaths and somebody finally insists on testing those people ... it will be much more difficult to contain the new virus within the US.
I feel like one of those Star Wars droids (K-2SO?) saying, "There Is a 97.6% chance of failure" that the virus is already spreading under the radar inside the US. I don't know the percent chance. But we haven't even turned the radar on yet in the US!
I asked my public health friend to explain what the problem was with the CDC's test kits. I then learned from him more about how these tests work, but the ultimate answer was "sometimes these things are difficult". They're working on it ... the kits will be ready when they are ready.
I'm not one for repeating conspiracy theories. But a conservative approach to containing this virus won't get the job done. Presidential tweets won't either. Identification, isolation, and tracing are key. If they aren't testing people, they can't identify them, or isolate them, or trace their contacts.
I'm not sure writing in my journal about this is good enough. I might press my public health friend tomorrow -- who should I (or we?) talk to? Is there somebody in Congress who could help turn on the radar sooner? Could we get test kits from another country?
This seemed strange to me. Really, we've tested fewer than 500 people when we currently have 53 confirmed cases in the US? I asked my public health friend, "Trivia question, how many people have been tested in the US?" He answered the question correctly, under 500. Hmmm. How is this number adequate?
The criteria for getting tested in the US are pretty tight. If you haven't traveled from China within the past 14 days, and you aren't known to have had close contact with a lab-confirmed case within the past 14 days, then you aren't eligible for testing -- and they will not test you.
Furthermore, they also won't test anybody who is asymptomatic -- even if they have had close contact with a lab-confirmed case! Instead they tell asymptomatic high-risk people to monitor themselves for symptoms. It's not like -- hey, I'm worried I might have been exposed to HIV, let me go get an HIV test. It doesn't work that way, you can't just get a COVID-19 test because you or your doctor are worried. The CDC has kept a lid on who is eligible for testing.
-----
Ten days ago, the CDC announced plans to begin community surveillance for COVID-19 in five US cities -- Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and New York. The plans included setting up routine testing of samples from people with flu-like illnesses who tested negative for influenza. In Singapore, for example, they are already doing this -- everybody with pneumonia in Singapore gets a COVID-19 test.
But there were problems with the CDC's test kits, so this testing has not yet begun in the US ...
The US could be missing the spread of COVID-19 within its borders by refusing to test people who have no links to known cases, and by refusing to test asymptomatic people who do have links to known cases. By the time we have a noticeable cluster of pneumonia deaths and somebody finally insists on testing those people ... it will be much more difficult to contain the new virus within the US.
I feel like one of those Star Wars droids (K-2SO?) saying, "There Is a 97.6% chance of failure" that the virus is already spreading under the radar inside the US. I don't know the percent chance. But we haven't even turned the radar on yet in the US!
I asked my public health friend to explain what the problem was with the CDC's test kits. I then learned from him more about how these tests work, but the ultimate answer was "sometimes these things are difficult". They're working on it ... the kits will be ready when they are ready.
I'm not one for repeating conspiracy theories. But a conservative approach to containing this virus won't get the job done. Presidential tweets won't either. Identification, isolation, and tracing are key. If they aren't testing people, they can't identify them, or isolate them, or trace their contacts.
I'm not sure writing in my journal about this is good enough. I might press my public health friend tomorrow -- who should I (or we?) talk to? Is there somebody in Congress who could help turn on the radar sooner? Could we get test kits from another country?