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A THREAD ON TESTING: I am deeply worried about the serious testing delays and bottlenecks being reported throughout the US. It will only get worse when flu season starts. https://twitter.com/JenniferNuzzo/status/1280853497068519424
The US has greatly expanded the number of tests it can conduct. We went from ~25,000 tests per day in March to well over 500K tests per day. But it is still not enough because spread of the virus outpaced these efforts.
We know we need to further expand testing because US test positivity is rising quickly. This means the number of infections is increasing faster than the number of tests conducted. We are now at 8%, which is much higher than established benchmarks. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states
29 states now have positivities that are too high. And positivity in many of these states is in the double digits! https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/testing-positivity
This means that more than half of US states are likely missing lots of infections. Their case counts are underestimates and infected people are not being identified or isolated. This will further accelerate transmission.
The US is doing a much worse job at testing than other countries. Many countries have been able to test enough to have much lower positivities. Eg, South Korea's overall positivity is <2%. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/international-comparison
Other countries, like New Zealand, addressed shortages by convening public/private partnership to jointly source needed supplies. https://www.outbreakobservatory.org/outbreakthursday-1/6/11/2020/new-zealand-declares-itself-covid-free
We need a national strategy to meaningfully expand testing in the US. We can't continue to make states and cities compete with each other (and other countries) for reagents. They've been coming up with workarounds but it's basically chewing gum in the crack on a dam.
I can't comprehend why the US hasn't conducted a detailed national audit of the testing to identify current and anticipated future bottlenecks and challenges.
We need a national testing strategy that identifies problems and articulates an operational plan for addressing them.
Individual states or, worse, cities can't be expected to solve interruptions in international supply chains. They also can't be expected to compete with international businesses who are also trying to gain access to tests to enable their employees to return to work.
The US government can solve testing bottlenecks--through domestic production of reagents, if that's what is necessary.
Testing is essential for controlling this virus and reopening the economy. We can't do either of those things if many people can't get tested. Or if it takes weeks to get test results back. We can't just leave this up to states and cities to sort out like it's the Hunger Games.
