3 ms·

The CDC has a strong reputation and this would be a rare disappointment. I think they still deserve benefit of the doubt for now but also owe the public a clea

The CDC has a strong reputation and this would be a rare disappointment. I think they still deserve benefit of the doubt for now but also owe the public a clear explanation, especially when professional epidemiologists are also puzzled by the situation. The misstep if true would be particularly regretful for a couple reasons. First, the underlying technology isn’t complicated: PCR [1] is for molecular biology what the hash map might be for software engineering, not simple per se but well understood and widely used. The coronavirus test requires a variation to detect RNA instead of DNA [2] but that still isn’t rocket science. Second, the article points to alternative tests [3] that could probably have been performed safely by many labs in the US if they had the approval. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_transcription_polymerase_chain_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_transcription_polymera... [3]: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/laboratory-guidance https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... (Edit: It should be noted that PCR can be finicky. But given that labs around the world have been sharing which primers they use, I would hope that the CDC had access to that information, could test those primers in parallel, and pick the ones that performed the best.)

koheripbal 7y ago
It's impossible to argue that there wasn't a misstep here. They test kits were recalled, and they simultaneously banned states from developing their own local tests - something multiple other countries were able to do with ease. A PCR test is one of the simplest tests a lab can perform, and while there's some value in centralizing tests - it's ridiculous to tie the hands of local labs while simultaneously stalling the central test kits. Whenever possible, in massive nation-wide problems like this, we need multiple teams working in parallel. We cannot afford single points of failure like this. The same is true for vaccine development.

koheripbal 7y ago

It's impossible to argue that there wasn't a misstep here. They test kits were recalled, and they simultaneously banned states from developing their own local tests - something multiple other countries were able to do with ease. A PCR test is one of the simplest tests a lab can perform, and while there's some value in centralizing tests - it's ridiculous to tie the hands of local labs while simultaneously stalling the central test kits. Whenever possible, in massive nation-wide problems like this, we need multiple teams working in parallel. We cannot afford single points of failure like this. The same is true for vaccine development.