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Nothing about what the CDC is doing is “understandable.” They’re stonewalling and delaying frontline responders testing puts the healthcare system more at risk

Nothing about what the CDC is doing is “understandable.” They’re stonewalling and delaying frontline responders testing puts the healthcare system more at risk of being overwhelmed and we’ve already seen cases of large numbers of nursing staff having to be quarantined once retroactive exposure was determined. There was also not a “temporary delay” with the kits, there is still nowhere near the necessary testing capacity and they’re throwing out absurd, false numbers like “1 million test kits” that then have to be walked back. And the whole absence of testing is because they rejected the WHO’s test kit and donations of them! We could have began testing immediately. I’m not sure where you’re getting all this nonsense about the absence of testing being “good for the data”. Every epidemiologist I’ve seen is saying the exact opposite, e.g.: Michael Mina, Asst Professor of Epidemiology & Immunology & physician @ Harvard School of Public Health/Medicine > 1 in 6 positive samples in China were asymptomatic and choice was made to not report those. This information is crucial for epidemiological modeling and developing appropriate mitigating strategies. Reporting all positives as symptomatic or not should be standard reporting. https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1234355620557545473 https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/12343556205575454... Why are epidemiologists saying that testing and reporting asymptomatic cases is necessary for responding appropriately, counter to what you claim?

wahern 7y ago
What value does knowing the total number of asymptomatic cases provide today? Such data is doubtlessly invaluable for studying the virus, but it's unnecessary today for managing the outbreak. Yes, the data can help us more accurately estimate the rate of infections, but that'll take months or years to pin down to the precision that such fine-grained data promises. In the mean time, you can roughly determine the spread of impactful cases by the change in number of presentations of respiratory infections, just as we've done for decades. You characterize what they're doing as stonewalling, but I'm charactering it as prioritizing. The biggest priority is collecting data on severe cases, and generally following established protocol to minimize unforced errors. The number of asymptomatic cases doesn't help you figure out how many ventilators you might need, at least not in a timely manner. The middle of an epidemic is not the time to revolutionize the practice and science of medicine. If you don't think things through carefully--i.e. the impact of false negatives and false positives of assay kits--you can easily fsck things up. Researchers want data, but the primary concern right now is juggling medical resources and finding treatments. More data is not always helpful, especially data not directly relevant to the present task. You're also assuming that hospitals and doctors are itching to run assay kits on every suspected case. Why, because some nurse's complaints went viral on social media? To out-do Singapore? Because "more data"? Doctors not interested in running millions of assay kits aren't going to be the ones complaining, not unless you forced them to run the tests. An assay result won't change the way you treat a patient with characteristic signs of a severe respiratory infection in the middle of a global SARS outbreak.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  This is just a series of counterfactuals to everything that’s been reported and said is necessary by frontline healthcare staff, epidemiologists, and even the WHO. You can keep making these evidence-free, self-justifying claims, but that’s the sum total of what they are. You can’t even respond to an epidemiologist saying they’re necessary to put in place appropriate mitigating strategies without espousing straw men like “outdoing Singapore” or “one nurse going viral.” I guess all these other doctors and nurses, describing chaos in California because of the lack of testing, are just trying to “go viral” too? https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-06/chaos-at-hospitals-due-to-shortage-of-coronavirus-tests https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-06/chaos-at-ho...

wahern 7y ago

What value does knowing the total number of asymptomatic cases provide today? Such data is doubtlessly invaluable for studying the virus, but it's unnecessary today for managing the outbreak. Yes, the data can help us more accurately estimate the rate of infections, but that'll take months or years to pin down to the precision that such fine-grained data promises. In the mean time, you can roughly determine the spread of impactful cases by the change in number of presentations of respiratory infections, just as we've done for decades. You characterize what they're doing as stonewalling, but I'm charactering it as prioritizing. The biggest priority is collecting data on severe cases, and generally following established protocol to minimize unforced errors. The number of asymptomatic cases doesn't help you figure out how many ventilators you might need, at least not in a timely manner. The middle of an epidemic is not the time to revolutionize the practice and science of medicine. If you don't think things through carefully--i.e. the impact of false negatives and false positives of assay kits--you can easily fsck things up. Researchers want data, but the primary concern right now is juggling medical resources and finding treatments. More data is not always helpful, especially data not directly relevant to the present task. You're also assuming that hospitals and doctors are itching to run assay kits on every suspected case. Why, because some nurse's complaints went viral on social media? To out-do Singapore? Because "more data"? Doctors not interested in running millions of assay kits aren't going to be the ones complaining, not unless you forced them to run the tests. An assay result won't change the way you treat a patient with characteristic signs of a severe respiratory infection in the middle of a global SARS outbreak.

claudeganon 7y ago
This is just a series of counterfactuals to everything that’s been reported and said is necessary by frontline healthcare staff, epidemiologists, and even the WHO. You can keep making these evidence-free, self-justifying claims, but that’s the sum total of what they are. You can’t even respond to an epidemiologist saying they’re necessary to put in place appropriate mitigating strategies without espousing straw men like “outdoing Singapore” or “one nurse going viral.” I guess all these other doctors and nurses, describing chaos in California because of the lack of testing, are just trying to “go viral” too? https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-06/chaos-at-hospitals-due-to-shortage-of-coronavirus-tests https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-06/chaos-at-ho...