4 ms·

What Went Wrong with Coronavirus Testing in the U.S.

ajross 7y ago
tl;dr: (I love the New Yorker most of the time, but their bury-the-reader-in-prose style is absolutely NOT an appropriate fit for this story) 1. A technical messup led to the orginal batch of CDC tests being bad. This seems unavoidable. Stuff happens. 2. A bureaucratic disaster in HHS led to delays trying to get private tests certified. This will forever be fodder for conspiracy arguments, as both the HHS secretary and president were issuing statements at the time pointing to low positive test counts as evidence for the virus not being serious.
- avz 7y ago
  This is not a correct summary of the article! The article never suggests or discusses the potential of the bureaucratic problems at the HHS and the resulting delays to stoke or support conspiracy arguments. On the contrary, that part appears to be OP's own reflection on the subject and should not be attributed to New Yorker. Source: Just finished reading the full article.
  - ajross 7y ago
    Did you miss the section starting "Yet flexibility was not what Jerome and his lab found when they tried to get an E.U.A. for their COVID-19 test." ? I don't know how else to read that. It's paragraphs and paragraphs of evidence detailing the bureaucratic mess.
roenxi 7y ago
Lets underline what is happening here. When they get nervous, people want to see centralised control protecting them. I'm the same. But we have pretty solid evidence that distributed market systems can react much more quickly and comprehensively than a centralised body. Parellelise the response, essentially. In this case, there was a crisis. Control was centralised into a system that statistically has to be supremely fault tolerant to work. The system wasn't especially fault tolerant and didn't work. There is no need to centralise control in a crisis, centralising information is what matters. If the CDC had a register of which tests it supported and let the market be a little bit confused then the situation in the US would be substantially better now. Turns out a bit of nervousness was warranted. Extremely sarcastic well done to the people at the CDC who successfully kept everyone going on with their lives as normal while they found their feet.
- nwsm 7y ago
  Did any countries that handled it better do so via a distributed market response?
  - roenxi 7y ago
    I dunno. I googled "south korea test kit production" and found: > On January 16, Chun Jong-yoon, the chief executive and founder of molecular biotech company Seegene, told his team it was time to start focusing on coronavirus. > "Even if nobody is asking us to, we are a molecular diagnosis company. We have to prepare in advance," he remembered thinking at the time. > Seegene is one of four domestic companies providing coronavirus test kits in South Korea. > But the company is also facing international demand from about 30 countries -- including Italy and Germany -- some of which are using Seegene's products on patients, Chun said. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-testing-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-ko... These people exist. Let them do their thing. I'm sure the government can help; but there is a role for them. But the CDC didn't fill its role and that is a serious risk that is inherent centralised systems.
    - Gravityloss 7y ago
      I think it also explains how Korea could have a very different tactic compared to many countries - test a lot more people right away, drive-in testing, then announce where infected people had been to etc. Here, since all test kits are imported and we might stop getting them, it makes sense to really minimize testing.
- kryogen1c 7y ago
  > There is no need to centralise control in a crisis, centralising information is what matters. unrelated nitpick about word choice, since your point seems correct: this is well known in military circles as centralized control with decentralized execution.
loopz 7y ago
Trump said his thought is he handled it 10/10.
- Smoosh 7y ago
  I thought that President Trump appointed Vice President Pence to lead the government response: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-china-live-updates/2020/02/26/f889693a-580e-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronaviru... But then I read that Jared Kushner was somehow involved/in charge: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jared-kushner-coronavirus-karlie-kloss-dad-facebook-trump-a9400291.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jared-kush... Either they are doing a great job and getting everyone involved, or more likely, they are doing a terrible job, and no-one knows what they are doing.

tl;dr: (I love the New Yorker most of the time, but their bury-the-reader-in-prose style is absolutely NOT an appropriate fit for this story) 1. A technical messup led to the orginal batch of CDC tests being bad. This seems unavoidable. Stuff happens. 2. A bureaucratic disaster in HHS led to delays trying to get private tests certified. This will forever be fodder for conspiracy arguments, as both the HHS secretary and president were issuing statements at the time pointing to low positive test counts as evidence for the virus not being serious.

avz 7y ago
This is not a correct summary of the article! The article never suggests or discusses the potential of the bureaucratic problems at the HHS and the resulting delays to stoke or support conspiracy arguments. On the contrary, that part appears to be OP's own reflection on the subject and should not be attributed to New Yorker. Source: Just finished reading the full article.
- ajross 7y ago
  Did you miss the section starting "Yet flexibility was not what Jerome and his lab found when they tried to get an E.U.A. for their COVID-19 test." ? I don't know how else to read that. It's paragraphs and paragraphs of evidence detailing the bureaucratic mess.

roenxi 7y ago

Lets underline what is happening here. When they get nervous, people want to see centralised control protecting them. I'm the same. But we have pretty solid evidence that distributed market systems can react much more quickly and comprehensively than a centralised body. Parellelise the response, essentially. In this case, there was a crisis. Control was centralised into a system that statistically has to be supremely fault tolerant to work. The system wasn't especially fault tolerant and didn't work. There is no need to centralise control in a crisis, centralising information is what matters. If the CDC had a register of which tests it supported and let the market be a little bit confused then the situation in the US would be substantially better now. Turns out a bit of nervousness was warranted. Extremely sarcastic well done to the people at the CDC who successfully kept everyone going on with their lives as normal while they found their feet.

nwsm 7y ago
Did any countries that handled it better do so via a distributed market response?
- roenxi 7y ago
  I dunno. I googled "south korea test kit production" and found: > On January 16, Chun Jong-yoon, the chief executive and founder of molecular biotech company Seegene, told his team it was time to start focusing on coronavirus. > "Even if nobody is asking us to, we are a molecular diagnosis company. We have to prepare in advance," he remembered thinking at the time. > Seegene is one of four domestic companies providing coronavirus test kits in South Korea. > But the company is also facing international demand from about 30 countries -- including Italy and Germany -- some of which are using Seegene's products on patients, Chun said. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-testing-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-ko... These people exist. Let them do their thing. I'm sure the government can help; but there is a role for them. But the CDC didn't fill its role and that is a serious risk that is inherent centralised systems.
  - Gravityloss 7y ago
    I think it also explains how Korea could have a very different tactic compared to many countries - test a lot more people right away, drive-in testing, then announce where infected people had been to etc. Here, since all test kits are imported and we might stop getting them, it makes sense to really minimize testing.
kryogen1c 7y ago
> There is no need to centralise control in a crisis, centralising information is what matters. unrelated nitpick about word choice, since your point seems correct: this is well known in military circles as centralized control with decentralized execution.

loopz 7y ago

Trump said his thought is he handled it 10/10.

Smoosh 7y ago
I thought that President Trump appointed Vice President Pence to lead the government response: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-china-live-updates/2020/02/26/f889693a-580e-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronaviru... But then I read that Jared Kushner was somehow involved/in charge: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jared-kushner-coronavirus-karlie-kloss-dad-facebook-trump-a9400291.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jared-kush... Either they are doing a great job and getting everyone involved, or more likely, they are doing a terrible job, and no-one knows what they are doing.