Trump Administration's COVID Test Deserves Blame for Lengthy Return to Normalcy

[This is a lengthy post but well worth reading.]

On Saturday Jan. 11 — a month and a half before the first Covid-19 case not linked to travel was diagnosed in the United States — Chinese scientists posted the genome of the mysterious new virus, and within a week virologists in Berlin had produced the first diagnostic test for the disease.

Soon after, researchers in other nations rolled out their own tests, too, sometimes with different genetic targets. By the end of February, the World Health Organization had shipped tests to nearly 60 countries.

The United States was not among them.

Why the United States declined to use the WHO test, even temporarily as a bridge until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could produce its own test, remains a perplexing question and the key to the Trump administration’s failure to provide enough tests to identify the coronavirus infections before they could be passed on.

Neither the CDC nor the coronavirus task force chaired by Vice President Mike Pence would say who made the decision to forgo the WHO test and instead begin a protracted process of producing an American test, one that got delayed by manufacturing problems, possible lab contamination and logistical delays.

The government’s incapacity to conduct widespread testing slowed diagnoses, creating chains of infection. It also deprived epidemiologists of a map that could have told them how far and how fast the virus was traveling and where they should concentrate efforts to slow it down.
[article is from March 6, 2020]
How testing failures allowed coronavirus to sweep the U.S.
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OK, the Trump administration decided not to use any tests developed by other countries and instead developed their own test. They wouldn't even use another nation's test until the CDC's test came online.

And what about the CDC's test? Turns out it's way too sensitive, identifying millions of people that are infected but not contagious. This causes people to be quarantined that don't need to be, deflects efforts to contain the virus, slows the economy to a crawl and prevents a fast recovery.

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The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus.

Most of these people are not likely to be contagious, and identifying them may contribute to bottlenecks that prevent those who are contagious from being found in time.

The most widely used diagnostic test for the new coronavirus, called a PCR test, provides a simple yes-no answer to the question of whether a patient is infected.

But similar PCR tests for other viruses do offer some sense of how contagious an infected patient may be: The results may include a rough estimate of the amount of virus in the patient’s body.

“We’ve been using one type of data for everything, and that is just plus or minus — that’s all,” Dr. Mina said. “We’re using that for clinical diagnostics, for public health, for policy decision-making.”

But yes-no isn’t good enough, he added. It’s the amount of virus that should dictate the infected patient’s next steps. “It’s really irresponsible, I think, to forgo the recognition that this is a quantitative issue,” Dr. Mina said.

The PCR test amplifies genetic matter from the virus in cycles; the fewer cycles required, the greater the amount of virus, or viral load, in the sample. The greater the viral load, the more likely the patient is to be contagious.

This number of amplification cycles needed to find the virus, called the cycle threshold, is never included in the results sent to doctors and coronavirus patients, although it could tell them how infectious the patients are.

In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found.

On Thursday, the United States recorded 45,604 new coronavirus cases, according to a database maintained by The Times. If the rates of contagiousness in Massachusetts and New York were to apply nationwide, then perhaps only 4,500 of those people may actually need to isolate and submit to contact tracing.

“It’s just kind of mind-blowing to me that people are not recording the C.T. values from all these tests — that they’re just returning a positive or a negative,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York.

“It would be useful information to know if somebody’s positive, whether they have a high viral load or a low viral load,” she added.
[article is from August 29, 2020]
Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.

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So we have a yes/no test for COVID that does measure for viral load, but we don't use those viral load numbers to create public health policy. Instead we lump anybody and everybody into the infected column and make them self-quarantine. This is akin to having a block of buildings on fire and having firefighters deployed to putting out the dying, glowing embers at one end of the block while buildings raging afire at the other end of the block don't have enough firefighters to battle the flames effectively.

 

Other than your use of the word 'Covid' I don't see anything in your post that is related to the topic I presented.

Oh well, typical Baptist Board.

 

Interesting that neither of you have any blame for President Trump.

Why the United States declined to use the WHO test, even temporarily as a bridge until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could produce its own test, remains a perplexing question and the key to the Trump administration’s failure to provide enough tests to identify the coronavirus infections before they could be passed on.

Neither the CDC nor the coronavirus task force chaired by Vice President Mike Pence would say who made the decision to forgo the WHO test and instead begin a protracted process of producing an American test, one that got delayed by manufacturing problems, possible lab contamination and logistical delays.

Seems to me if there were someone other than Trump to blame for delaying testing until one Made in the USA was available Trump would have tweeted this person's name least as much as he tweets about shutting down air travel from China and then quite publicly shamed them on Twitter and then fired them.


“We’ve been using one type of data for everything, and that is just plus or minus — that’s all,” Dr. Mina said. “We’re using that for clinical diagnostics, for public health, for policy decision-making.”

Only a moron wouldn't know that a simple yes/no test would result in massive positive results with no qualitative metric to define the contagious level of a person's viral load. While a yes/no test would have been erroring on the side of caution to the maximum and one that would have likely been pushed by health officials, we have Trump, Pence, and the rest of the cabinet to consider ALL aspects of this sort of decision, including the effects on the economy. They failed us.

 

Yes, to a point. Experts would tell us to shutdown the economy, self-quarantine and stay at home until this thing blows over. There would be no timetable or goal where we would get back to normal. We have politicians and leaders to weigh what the experts say and chart a course that benefits the most people.

This isn't about false positives. This is about using a simple Yes/No test to determine if someone has the virus. No consideration was given to the severity of the infection, and none given to the contagious level of the individual.

Yeah, so? The United States could have used any number of COVID tests developed by any other nation. Germany had a particularly good test, which is why they got out from under the virus rapidly and earlier than most nations.

Yes, he deserves credit for the travel ban. I have said so in previous posts in past months. The Dems deserve condemnation for playing down the threat in the early stages.

Trump also deserves criticism for not implementing ANY test while waiting for one to be developed in the US, and then using a simple Yes/No test with no qualitative measure of infection level. This simplistic test literally sidelined millions of people for at least 30 days, did damage to our economy, panicked people, put people out of work, shuttered restaurants, etc. and caused massive spending in stimulus money. Most of this was unnecessary had a proper test had been implemented earlier.

 

It was predestined before the foundation of the world.

 

This is directly from whitehouse.gov:

Core State Preparedness Responsibilities

TESTING & CONTACT TRACING
* Ability to quickly set up safe and efficient screening and testing sites for symptomatic individuals and trace contacts of COVID+ results
* Ability to test Syndromic/ILI-indicated persons for COVID and trace contacts of COVID+ results
* Ensure sentinel surveillance sites are screening for asymptomatic cases and contacts for COVID+ results are traced (sites operate at locations that serve older individuals, lower-income Americans, racial minorities, and Native Americans)

Opening Up America Again

Proposed Criteria for Phased Reopening

* ALL VULNERABLE INDIVIDUALS should continue to shelter in place. Members of households with vulnerable residents should be aware that by returning to work or other environments where distancing is not practical, they could carry the virus back home. Precautions should be taken to isolate from vulnerable residents.

* Avoid SOCIALIZING in groups of more than 10 people in circumstances that do not readily allow for appropriate physical distancing (e.g., receptions, trade shows)

* Continue to adhere to State and local guidance as well as complementary CDC guidance, particularly with respect to face coverings.

* SCHOOLS AND ORGANIZED YOUTH ACTIVITIES (e.g., daycare, camp) that are currently closed should remain closed.

* VISITS TO SENIOR LIVING FACILITIES AND HOSPITALS should be prohibited. Those who do interact with residents and patients must adhere to strict protocols regarding hygiene.

* LARGE VENUES (e.g., sit-down dining, movie theaters, sporting venues, places of worship) can operate under strict physical distancing protocols.

Opening Up America Again | The White House

 

Cherry picking? Really?

I clicked on whitehouse.gov, then clicked on Coronavirus, then clicked on Opening Up America Again, and there was the stuff I posted. It shows the White House giving much the same recommendations of the states and also telling US citizens to follow the state guidelines and CDC guidelines.