We can certainly test vigorously, like other countries may be, but then what? Good luck quarantining that many people in a free society. Again, with the appearance that this is transmittable from people without symptoms or before symptoms show up, how will we really stop it via testing? The cat’s out of the bag. Nature or a vaccine is our next best real hope.
On the NH patient who attended an event after being told to self-isolate, that person is an employee at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, who disregarded the advice to attend a Tuck Business School social event. You’d think that someone who works for a major medical facility would have better sense than that. Apparently not.
I certainly hope our health departments and hospitals do not feel that we might as well give up on testing. Without testing, how will we know where the hotspots are? This virus spreads by “close contact”. It is found in clusters of people with close contact. Wouldn’t you want to know if one of those places is your local hospital, school, day care, office, gym, yoga studio, or place of worship?
Even if you think the only hope is the vaccine, why not test, trace contacts and isolate in the year and a half that will take? It slows down the outbreak and buys more time.
Finally, if you were a health care worker, how would you feel about having no way to diagnose this illness?
I’m not saying to not test at all. Sure, we need to test those that we suspect of being sick. Sure we should trace back their contacts. I just think blanket over-testing is not going to happen and if it does I doubt it gets us anywhere quickly.
We are finding the hot spots as people get sick. We then test those sick people.
per Pence: ““Today we will issue new guidance from the CDC that will make it clear that any American can be tested” for coronavirus “no restrictions, subject to doctor’s orders.”” (via a NYT reporter on twitter)
Re: the Westchester NY case: https://abc7ny.com/amp/5982509
There is a whole big middle ground of targeted testing. Right now Washington State seems to need a lot wider sweep of testing but other places maybe don’t. China shows that aggressive testing and containment worked. Their numbers are actually going down. If they had thrown in the towel at the state the USA is at now, we would have had a many times larger problem and much sooner.
We also need health care providers to be able to be routinely screened. In both China and Italy, infected hospital staff spread SARS-CoV-2 infection to others. This previously happened with SARS-CoV-1 as well.
I don’t understand how our country seems to be so unprepared. Did we not have all sorts of plans for all sorts of scenarios? What if this has been a much more deadly virus? I always imagined scenarios like the movies where the US military would quarantine sections of the country under martial law, which would be scary, but very well organized and effective. I never imagined a response like we have seen. I don’t understand it. I think there is more going on behind the scenes than we know if state officials in my state knew and were making plans since late December, but I want to trust the CDC is competent and going to protect us, even if they stumbled badly at the outset of this.
I hope that person is now an ex-employee. The Medical Center should fire their butt.
" I always imagined scenarios like the movies where the US military would quarantine sections of the country under martial law, which would be scary, but very well organized and effective. "
Uhhhmm. No.
Absolutely there is plenty of middle ground for testing.
Has China been doing widespread testing outside of sick people?
I’d say China’s main success has been in aggressive control of it’s population. It’s a lot easier in a society used to communist rule. Sure, shut down entire cities. Empty the streets. Round up anyone out and about. That’s pretty easy in China. I don’t see that working completely in our free society.
This virus is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
The patient was initially treated at Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, then transferred to Columbia-NY Presbyterian, per a notice from the Bronxville police department.
Yikes, 50 and in critical condition.
If we can eliminate or reduce other means of transmission than asymptomatic transmission, then the rate of transmission would be significantly reduced because asymptomatic transmission only plays a small part. Vaccine is at least one year away, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci. I’d rather believe the medical experts than the politicians in DC.
I’m thankful the military is not imposing martial law and quarantining large swaths of America.
This is not an outbreak of that level. I think you would need something much much worse to actually see a response on that level. Think something worse than Ebola…
"Did we not have all sorts of plans for all sorts of scenarios? " yes but the current occupant of the WH threw them out.
"Legum outlined a series of cost-cutting decisions made by the Trump administration in preceding years that had gutted the nation’s infectious disease defense infrastructure. The “pandemic response team” firing claim referred to news accounts from Spring 2018 reporting that White House officials tasked with directing a national response to a pandemic had been ousted.
Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018 amid a reorganization of the council by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Ziemer’s team was disbanded. Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior.
It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time."
Can you imagine quarantine China style in Manhattan ?
That was brought up with WHO official Bruce Aylward who led a fact-finding mission to Hubei, China.
Here is the question:
“The WHO has been suggesting the world should follow China’s lead, but as you know, there are concerns about the human rights effects from China’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak — most notably, the restrictions on freedom of movement through lockdowns and cordon sanitaires. How do you respond to critics who are concerned about that?”
And here is Aylward’s answer:
"I think people aren’t paying close enough attention. The majority of the response in China, in 30 provinces, was about case finding, contact tracing, and suspension of public gatherings — all common measures used anywhere in the world to manage [the spread of] diseases.
The lockdowns people are referring to — the human rights concerns — usually reflect the situation in places like Wuhan [the city in Hubei province where the virus was first detected]. [The lockdown] was concentrated in Wuhan and two or three other cities that also exploded [with Covid-19 cases]. These are places that got out of control in the beginning [of the outbreak], and China made this decision to protect China and the rest of the world."
Then, like Ebola, it would probably die out fairly quickly.
Well for one, we don’t actually have a pandemic task force anymore.
Do you really want to give the government - any government - the power to just declare martial law over a virus? Conceivably, they could do this over the flu which kills thousands and thousands each year.
And even if they could - I ask again - where are we going to put people? We had problems finding accommodations for the cruise passengers.
I wouldn’t count on there being way more behind the scenes plans than we currently know about, unfortunately.
Unfortunately, in this country, we don’t spend nearly enough money on public health. This has been a problem for decades.