This "journalist" is asking why Irish government didn& #39;t stockpile reagents in January. He thinks it& #39;s a gotcha question to highlight Government incompetence, as if all they had to do was bulk-buy paint at the hardware store.

I& #39;ll try answer so he doesn& #39;t waste his time on you. https://twitter.com/EwanMacKenna/status/1245670625265569792">https://twitter.com/EwanMacKe...
By January 9th, the causative agent of the illness in Wuhan still hadn& #39;t been identified. January 10th saw the first upload of the Genome sequence of covid19.

German scientists developed the first diagnostic test for the illness on January 16th.
If you& #39;re with me so far, draw a big line through Dec 31st to Jan 16th for "stockpiling" anything. They didn& #39;t know what they were dealing with.

It took 3 days more for Chinese Government to get nucleic acid test reagents developed and 3 more days to get them to labs/hospitals.
So draw another line through January 16th to 22nd.

On January 24th, Chinese media reported there was a massive shortage of testing reagents.

A few days into widespread testing, there was a massive shortage in testing materials already. https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1177814.shtml">https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1...
January 27th, Meridian Bioscience swooped in to the rescue dispatching a huge shipment of their Lyo-Ready 1-Step RT q-PCR reagent to Wuhan/Hubei. Other Chinese companies were in the cavalry helping.

At this point, there was 2,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus with 56 dead.
I& #39;ll give you a very quick example of the work involved here.

Liferiver Biotech, a Chinese company, got the genome sequence on January 10th. They immediately scrambled for retired employees to come back to help.

Worked 24 and 36 hour shifts depending on age, around-the-clock.
Put a big fucking line through stockpiling reagents in January.

The first half of the month, they didn& #39;t know what was even killing people.

The second half, they worked until exhaustion to develop tests and produce reagents for the tests.

January = write-off.
I& #39;m going to assume based on your tweets, you don& #39;t know a reagent from your elbow. You might think they could just use any old reagent or they& #39;re not important.

The initial roll-out of tests by the US CDC on Feb 9th was a debacle, due to an issue with the reagents they used.
Coincidentally, on the same day, February 9th, the NYT ran a story on how China& #39;s efforts were still hampered by the shortage of necessary reagents.

You should by now be seeing a pattern. Demand has outstripped supply from day 1.

It& #39;s a pandemic. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/world/asia/china-coronavirus-tests.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/0...
Here& #39;s the part I thought I& #39;d leave until near last, just so this sinks in.

The normal length of time it takes to develop reagents is -

3 - 4 months.

From the beginning, the global scientific community have been working their ass off on this on levels that almost defy belief.
You claim to be a journalist. All of this information - all of it - is publicly available.

But, hey, in modern life it& #39;s a hell of a lot easier to spend your time on Twitter bitching "aT tHe gOvERnmEnt" than investing a few hours of research before making a numpty of yourself.
You can follow @Care2much18.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: