America is following disastrous Trump advice to slow down testing

[Nevilledog]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/opinions/covid-19-cases-spiking-trump-sepkowitz-opinion/index.html

(CNN)Public health experts know that the only way forward in this pandemic is to increase, not decrease, testing. This is how other countries reined in their outbreaks -- testing, plus doggedly tracing and isolating people who are infected. Here In the United States, the National Basketball Association, now playing games without interruption, has shown the effectiveness of a very aggressive testing policy.

But don't look now, America: for the past few weeks, we have followed President Donald Trump's dangerous and deluded advice, memorably delivered from a stage in Tulsa Oklahoma six weeks ago, "to slow the testing down, please."

Bigly. And the drop in testing is happening at the same time that case numbers across the US have shown a drop as well, the latter to great fanfare; the former without a peep.

There are several groups that track national testing numbers. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), though recently shut out from receiving hospital data in a mid-July White House decision, still updates national testing information in a large, though incomplete, sample.

*snip*

[beachbumbob]

1. only CERTAIN states follow trumps play and the voters have a decision come Nov 3rd

[TheFarseer]

2. To me, that's the best answer we have

We need an easier test where you can get near instant results. Then people wouldn’t e going out and unknowingly spreading it.

[lapfog_1]

3. Ideally, mandatory testing of everyone over the age of 10

every 2 weeks, probably 250M tests.

To scale that, the samples collected should be grouped by 10 or possibly 20 samples for RT-PCR testing... and any group with positive result gets an immediate follow on RT-PCR individual test. That's only 12.5 million samples a week. Doable.

Contact tracing and isolation of any individual positive test.

This could drastically reduce the community spread of the virus. To the point, along with masks and social distancing and hand washing, that we could return to normal in 3 months (almost no active cases).

Seems impossible? It's really not.

[lapucelle]

4. Not here in NYS...we have Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

Chart of the Day: New York continues to lead the nation in testing while maintaining a low infection rate

https://www.governor.ny.gov/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. One huge problem is that getting the chemicals needed

to test is getting harder. It's not just a case of, "Oh, well, we don't need to test so much" as a lack of supplies.

Gearing up to test a couple hundred million people every week or so is simply not going to be possible or feasible. Unless someone develops something along the lines of a piece of paper that you can spit on and within a few minutes it shows either positive or negative, sort of like the home pregnancy tests. And unless they are free, there will be a lot of people who won't be able to afford them. Not to mention the looming millions of newly homeless.