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From another story on the nursing home outbreak: > "If we had the ability to test earlier, I'm sure we would have identified patients earlier," he [a Washingto

by aazaa 7y ago

From another story on the nursing home outbreak: > "If we had the ability to test earlier, I'm sure we would have identified patients earlier," he [a Washington State health official] said. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/485302-officials-announce-possible-coronavirus-outbreak-in-washington-nursing https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/485302-officials-annou... This is a pattern playing out with striking regularity: 1. Local authorities can't test for themselves. 2. CDC adjudicates testing requests, rejects many (most) of them. 3. People likely infected with COVID-19 are sent back home, to infect others. Consider this case, posted to HN today: https://abc7ny.com/5974999/ https://abc7ny.com/5974999/ This pattern of apparently deliberate suppression of information can only fan the flames of what looks like a rapidly escalating problem.

adrianmonk 7y ago
> apparently deliberate suppression of information There's an alternative explanation: that the CDC massively dropped the ball on making enough test kits available. The CDC comes off looking pretty bad regardless of whether it's deceit or incompetence, but they're pretty different things. Hanlon's Razor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor) would tell us which to prefer, although it's not always right.
- wolco 7y ago
  I'm sure this is the reason. Not being honest about it is a problem.
  - baq 7y ago
    Why didn’t they buy working kits from other countries though? They had weeks to do that.
    - trylfthsk 7y ago
      My guess is that lead time for the volumes they'd need is about a month if buying from overseas - and that's assuming a foreign supplier could absorb the extra kit volume.
    - tejtm 7y ago
      Without being derogatory (only ironic); Made in China. That said it is a pandemic, those other countries are going to need their kits as much as anyone will.
    - Zach_the_Lizard 7y ago
      And even worse, I believe they banned buying foreign test kits, so local authorities, hospitals, etc. had no ability to take matters into their own hands.
    - adrianmonk 7y ago
      I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's just bad project management. You know how, when you really need to something accomplished without delay, you pursue two paths in parallel, so that by the time phase 1 comes to a close, you've got things ready for phase 2? Well, maybe the CDC doesn't. Obviously they do on some level because they did develop kits (which had problems, which delayed them). But it's one thing to give lip service to getting started on stuff you're going to need in the near future, and it's another thing to commit to it and follow through with it and make sure it happens. Also, I'm sure they were super busy and had other priorities, but lack of testing means the country is flying blind, so this should have made the short list of priorities.
    - makomk 7y ago
      Probably because there's absolutely no reason to do so? It's not like the US has a shortage of labs that can produce these kits. Supposedly, the problem was that the CDC lab tasked with mass producing the testing kits wasn't competent to do so and didn't realise it - if the government had known what the problem was, they could've contracted production out to another US lab sooner. With the benefit of hindsight we of course know that getting kits from somewhere else would've been better, but imagine how much harder this problem would be to diagnose if the kits were sourced from some foreign lab the FDA didn't have access to.
- cryptoz 7y ago
  I think the CDC comes off looking like the victim here. Years ago, Trump fired the pandemic response team [1] with a cited reason to 'cut costs'. Clearly there must have been some other reason, because firing a pandemic response team is guaranteed to increase costs, not reduce them. Either way, the CDC has been intentionally handicapped by the Trump administration who specifically and intentionally reduced their ability to respond to crises like this one. I certainly do not blame the CDC for their issues this time around, they are generally an incredible organization employing truly top minds and very high tech. If there is blame to go around here, it is with those who think that science is fake and that no money needs to be spent on community healthcare or prevention. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
belltaco 7y ago
We had so long to mobilize a lot of resources for this, and test every person with flu-like illnesses, and isolate them. CDC releasing broken testing kits and limiting use of testing. And then the President calling it a hoax made up to make him look bad, and forcing all statements from federal health authorities to go through the VP. Isn't this exactly how the situation got so bad in Wuhan in the first place? Authorities not releasing information and preparing fast enough because it can make them look bad. China was able to limit the spread somewhat because they took the drastic step of cordoning off Hubei, shutting down all travel. If there was a big outbreak in WA, do you think the US, as a democracy, could shutdown all airports, roads and rail at the state border?
- craftinator 7y ago
  > If there was a big outbreak in WA, do you think the US, as a democracy, could shutdown all airports, roads and rail at the state border? This is why the WA governor called a state of emergency. With that action, the state level government gains some pretty un-Democratic powers, such as mobilizing the National Guard for martial actions. I think that it would take them a while, and not be perfect, but eventually they could shut down most external transportation.
runawaybottle 7y ago
I think you hit the nail on the head. This seems like a testing issue, the real numbers are not known yet.

by aazaa 7y ago

adrianmonk 7y ago

> apparently deliberate suppression of information There's an alternative explanation: that the CDC massively dropped the ball on making enough test kits available. The CDC comes off looking pretty bad regardless of whether it's deceit or incompetence, but they're pretty different things. Hanlon's Razor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor) would tell us which to prefer, although it's not always right.

wolco 7y ago
I'm sure this is the reason. Not being honest about it is a problem.
- baq 7y ago
  Why didn’t they buy working kits from other countries though? They had weeks to do that.
  - trylfthsk 7y ago
    My guess is that lead time for the volumes they'd need is about a month if buying from overseas - and that's assuming a foreign supplier could absorb the extra kit volume.
  - tejtm 7y ago
    Without being derogatory (only ironic); Made in China. That said it is a pandemic, those other countries are going to need their kits as much as anyone will.
  - Zach_the_Lizard 7y ago
    And even worse, I believe they banned buying foreign test kits, so local authorities, hospitals, etc. had no ability to take matters into their own hands.
  - adrianmonk 7y ago
    I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's just bad project management. You know how, when you really need to something accomplished without delay, you pursue two paths in parallel, so that by the time phase 1 comes to a close, you've got things ready for phase 2? Well, maybe the CDC doesn't. Obviously they do on some level because they did develop kits (which had problems, which delayed them). But it's one thing to give lip service to getting started on stuff you're going to need in the near future, and it's another thing to commit to it and follow through with it and make sure it happens. Also, I'm sure they were super busy and had other priorities, but lack of testing means the country is flying blind, so this should have made the short list of priorities.
  - makomk 7y ago
    Probably because there's absolutely no reason to do so? It's not like the US has a shortage of labs that can produce these kits. Supposedly, the problem was that the CDC lab tasked with mass producing the testing kits wasn't competent to do so and didn't realise it - if the government had known what the problem was, they could've contracted production out to another US lab sooner. With the benefit of hindsight we of course know that getting kits from somewhere else would've been better, but imagine how much harder this problem would be to diagnose if the kits were sourced from some foreign lab the FDA didn't have access to.
cryptoz 7y ago
I think the CDC comes off looking like the victim here. Years ago, Trump fired the pandemic response team [1] with a cited reason to 'cut costs'. Clearly there must have been some other reason, because firing a pandemic response team is guaranteed to increase costs, not reduce them. Either way, the CDC has been intentionally handicapped by the Trump administration who specifically and intentionally reduced their ability to respond to crises like this one. I certainly do not blame the CDC for their issues this time around, they are generally an incredible organization employing truly top minds and very high tech. If there is blame to go around here, it is with those who think that science is fake and that no money needs to be spent on community healthcare or prevention. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

belltaco 7y ago

We had so long to mobilize a lot of resources for this, and test every person with flu-like illnesses, and isolate them. CDC releasing broken testing kits and limiting use of testing. And then the President calling it a hoax made up to make him look bad, and forcing all statements from federal health authorities to go through the VP. Isn't this exactly how the situation got so bad in Wuhan in the first place? Authorities not releasing information and preparing fast enough because it can make them look bad. China was able to limit the spread somewhat because they took the drastic step of cordoning off Hubei, shutting down all travel. If there was a big outbreak in WA, do you think the US, as a democracy, could shutdown all airports, roads and rail at the state border?

craftinator 7y ago
> If there was a big outbreak in WA, do you think the US, as a democracy, could shutdown all airports, roads and rail at the state border? This is why the WA governor called a state of emergency. With that action, the state level government gains some pretty un-Democratic powers, such as mobilizing the National Guard for martial actions. I think that it would take them a while, and not be perfect, but eventually they could shut down most external transportation.

runawaybottle 7y ago

I think you hit the nail on the head. This seems like a testing issue, the real numbers are not known yet.