@1Benice Very good points. It’s strange that people who went into medicine should be saddled by excessive administration. It’s wasteful to the doctors’ time and energy.
@1Benice see the link I posted for info on how the CDC has been gutted AND we don’t have a coordinator for these types of issues thanks to cuts.
You don’t need to convince me that the US health care system is irrevocably broken. However, since only the CDC can process these samples right now, this is not a practice issue or anything other than a resource issue.
Then the CDC should outsource. I am sure there are other abs that would work faster and have enough people.
Quest and Labcorp are bid enough and have probably enough qualified people
I may have a different mind set but I don’t understand why already established big labs can’t do the work. Why do you need another large tax funded bureaucratic institution to run labs that other organization will do more efficiently ? If all you are interested is getting the job done fast with less money, CDC is not the best solution.
That will change in a couple of days. CDC has shipped out 200 testing kits across the country and will send some to international labs. More test kits are in production.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0206-coronavirus-diagnostic-test-kits.html
Wrong thread
This kind of stuff probably won’t make it more likely that the US will be allowed in to help with the virus. There are times to poke the bear and times to give it a break.
Someone asked for good news… well, if this is any consolation, they haven’t had to open any quarantine sites on US military bases yet.
And the US numbers are quite stable. It’s been at 11-12 for a while - another good news, knock on wood.
Daily tallies just for Hubei Province
81 new deaths (same as yesterday)
2,147 newly confirmed cases (down from 2,841 yesterday)
This report pushes the overall death toll past that of SARs.
Tests do not have to be made by the CDC exclusively, but they need to be validated before they can be used for diagnostic purposes.
For example, Qiagen announced that they will be releasing their test sometimes in the next month, and I am sure that other molecular diagnostics companies are working on such tests as well. Sequences are known, for example:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/rt-pcr-panel-primer-probes.html
Probes and primers can be synthesized, purified, and quantified in about 2-3 days (those in the link above are easy to make using standard reagents and methods). However, the manufacturer will have to spend some time to make sure the test does what it is supposed to do.
This link demonstrates why it takes a long time to run a 30 min or so test. There is a lot of time spent on sample preparation and setup. It is not like dropping the sample into a machine and waiting for the results to pop up on the screen.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/rt-pcr-detection-instructions.html
They are quarantining the people evacuated from Wuhan province on several American military bases.
Daily tallies
89 new deaths, all of China for 811 overall in China and 813 globally.
2,656 newly confirmed cases in China for down from 3,385 yesterday. Large decline! Let’s hope it turns into a trend. Total in China is 33,738 and 37,047-37,552 worldwide depending on the tracker and source. For some reason, they are getting more divergent.
Like Royal Caribbean yesterday, Norwegian Cruise Lines also announced they will now ban all travelers with Chinese, Hong Kong, Macau passports, regardless when or whether they’ve been in China recently.
A crew member on a cruise ship that was delayed in New Jersey after more than two dozen of its passengers were screened for the coronavirus was found dead on the ship due to what appears to be an unrelated cause, law enforcement sources say.
More than two dozen Chinese nationals traveling aboard Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas cruise were screened for signs of the new virus after the ship returned to Bayonne in New Jersey early Friday morning. Four were taken to a hospital out of caution.
On Saturday, two law enforcement sources told NBC 4 New York a 54-year-old crew member died on the voyage. Authorities do not believe the man’s death was related to the coronavirus, but are treating it with an “abundance of caution” as they await autopsy results.
Darren also wondered why, if the ship is contaminated, the 4,000-plus passengers who were on the boat were allowed to leave?
“If they believed one or more passengers on the boat could have the coronavirus, why let [them] disembark and go home and potentially carry the virus?”
Royal Caribbean did not immediately respond to a query from The Post regarding that question.
A series of other ships have also been affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
EXACTLY WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING!
The workers cleaning the Royal Caribbean Anthem of the Sea on Saturday were not wearing masks or hazmat suites. Nevertheless, one Bayonne dock worker who showed up to load luggage said he wouldn’t go on board.
“I wouldn’t get on that ship for free, because I am afraid,” said the dock worker, who was expecting to load luggage on the ship but was sent home because there was no loading to be done.
“It’s unfortunate,” he added, predicting that Royal Caribbean is “going to take a hit” from prospective passengers scared away from the cruise line. “A lot more people are going to think as I do.”
@Artist2233 so if an airline passenger is s screened at various US airports all passengers are quarantined?
23 passengers were tested for coronavirus and cleared. They immediately flew home to China.
I am reading everywhere that it takes a few days to get a result. How did they get this instant result and let the 23 go on their way?
Doesn’t sound like all was well on the cruise.