3 ms·

The CDC completely dropped the ball on providing test kits, so all the individual states and localities have had to source them themselves. Which, entirely pred

The CDC completely dropped the ball on providing test kits, so all the individual states and localities have had to source them themselves. Which, entirely predictably, they are not doing a great job at. It didn't help matters either that those test kits the CDC did provide early on turned out to have flaws that caused inaccurate readings (see https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/after-missteps-cdc-says-its-coronavirus-test-kit-ready-primetime-n1145206 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/after-missteps-cd...).

SkyPuncher 7y ago
From my understanding, state and local labs HAVE been able to source them. The CDC has been refusing to authorize them for testing. Univ. of Washington seems to be an outlier as they were able to get approval under an existing research study they have.
- alfiedotwtf 7y ago
  > The CDC has been refusing to authorize them for testing. This is new to me. Link?
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    See this reporting: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-testing-cdc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-testin... 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...
- chrisco255 7y ago
  I'm not sure where the lines break down between CDC and FDA, but the policy was changed on February 29th: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-new-policy-help-expedite-availability-diagnostics https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...
throwaway5752 7y ago
To reemphasize: the president fired the chain of command for handling pandemics and did not replace them. There is much more detailed information out there on it, but even Snopes rates it as a "True" https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ Considering CDC recommendations have been overruled at the executive level (HHS/cruise ship repatriation, which may have caused the CA cluster due to insufficient planning and training) and recommendations about seniors flying, it's reasonable to assume that chain of command is broken, not that the CDC itself is.
- TMWNN 7y ago
  >To reemphasize: the president fired the chain of command for handling pandemics and did not replace them There's a reason the Snopes piece is mostly based off a Twitter thread. If you actually read the NBC News and Washington Post articles the Snopes piece cites later, they describe the action as part of moving people to related departments as part of the new National Security Advisor's desire to restructure the hierarchy, and the head of the dedicated team resigning after not getting his desire to keep the team the way it was. Not "fired the chain of command". COVID19 was not a surprise; that is, it was known to exist in China some time before the first cases appeared in the US. It is not unreasonable for a government to assemble a team to respond to something like a pandemic as needed, as opposed to having people dedicated solely to the purpose and nothing else. You may or may not agree with this. But please don't claim that this is somehow prima facie proof of the Trump administration's malfeasance/evilness.
yourapostasy 7y ago
I've seen discussions of the faulty reagent (which happens, it's a production rollout under lots of stress and pressure). I've also seen through Foreign Policy Garrett's assertion that the Chinese-manufactured tests were rendering "up to" a 50% false negative rate, sometimes requiring 8 tests to render a valid result [1]. What I've yet to see is substantiation of claims online that because of what Garrett reported upon, the CDC chose to create its own PCR test instead of relying upon the Chinese version. If anyone can help me substantiate that, then that would be most welcome as it would explain a fair chunk of the CDC delays. For awhile, I dropped into the rabbit hole of contemplating building my own PCR thermocycler and buying my own RT-qPCR supermix to try to run my own tests, then I acknowledged I didn't know what the hell I was thinking. [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/15/coronavirus-xi-jinping-chinas-incompetence-endangered-the-world/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/15/coronavirus-xi-jinping-...

SkyPuncher 7y ago

From my understanding, state and local labs HAVE been able to source them. The CDC has been refusing to authorize them for testing. Univ. of Washington seems to be an outlier as they were able to get approval under an existing research study they have.

alfiedotwtf 7y ago
> The CDC has been refusing to authorize them for testing. This is new to me. Link?
- claudeganon 7y ago
  See this reporting: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-testing-cdc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/health/coronavirus-testin... 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...
chrisco255 7y ago
I'm not sure where the lines break down between CDC and FDA, but the policy was changed on February 29th: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-new-policy-help-expedite-availability-diagnostics https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...

throwaway5752 7y ago

To reemphasize: the president fired the chain of command for handling pandemics and did not replace them. There is much more detailed information out there on it, but even Snopes rates it as a "True" https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ Considering CDC recommendations have been overruled at the executive level (HHS/cruise ship repatriation, which may have caused the CA cluster due to insufficient planning and training) and recommendations about seniors flying, it's reasonable to assume that chain of command is broken, not that the CDC itself is.

TMWNN 7y ago
>To reemphasize: the president fired the chain of command for handling pandemics and did not replace them There's a reason the Snopes piece is mostly based off a Twitter thread. If you actually read the NBC News and Washington Post articles the Snopes piece cites later, they describe the action as part of moving people to related departments as part of the new National Security Advisor's desire to restructure the hierarchy, and the head of the dedicated team resigning after not getting his desire to keep the team the way it was. Not "fired the chain of command". COVID19 was not a surprise; that is, it was known to exist in China some time before the first cases appeared in the US. It is not unreasonable for a government to assemble a team to respond to something like a pandemic as needed, as opposed to having people dedicated solely to the purpose and nothing else. You may or may not agree with this. But please don't claim that this is somehow prima facie proof of the Trump administration's malfeasance/evilness.

yourapostasy 7y ago

I've seen discussions of the faulty reagent (which happens, it's a production rollout under lots of stress and pressure). I've also seen through Foreign Policy Garrett's assertion that the Chinese-manufactured tests were rendering "up to" a 50% false negative rate, sometimes requiring 8 tests to render a valid result [1]. What I've yet to see is substantiation of claims online that because of what Garrett reported upon, the CDC chose to create its own PCR test instead of relying upon the Chinese version. If anyone can help me substantiate that, then that would be most welcome as it would explain a fair chunk of the CDC delays. For awhile, I dropped into the rabbit hole of contemplating building my own PCR thermocycler and buying my own RT-qPCR supermix to try to run my own tests, then I acknowledged I didn't know what the hell I was thinking. [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/15/coronavirus-xi-jinping-chinas-incompetence-endangered-the-world/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/15/coronavirus-xi-jinping-...