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It's a policy choice to allow all of the reaction to work through the private sector instead of just deploying a national response strategy. In the U.S., the C

It's a policy choice to allow all of the reaction to work through the private sector instead of just deploying a national response strategy. In the U.S., the CDC tried to take the lead on testing (good) and essentially banned any other testing infrastructure (bad) and fell on its face with contamination issues (very bad), and pivoting to opening the testing infrastructure was a good policy choice. But the real answer has always been: DO BOTH. The CDC could be doing a million tests a day right now. Why don't they? It's madness.

heretoo 7y ago
Reminds me of "Contact". Why build one, when you can build two for twice the price? :)
makomk 7y ago
The reason the CDC aren't doing a million tests a day right now is because there is a massive global shortage of every single consumable needed to do this and no easy way to expand manufacturing. Even Germany, which has pretty much the best testing capacity for coronavirus of any country out there in per-capita terms, has been stalled at about 50,000 tests per day for a few weeks and it's not for any lack of desire to expand that. Trusted American media institutions like the New York Times and their Editorial Board have been giving people wildly overblown ideas about what would be possible if it wasn't for the hated Trump and his incompetence for stupid, partisan reasons.
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  There is no doubt that there are shortages of some consumables; namely the swab. But every single? That is utter nonsense. The lysis reagents, extraction reagents, nucleotides, enzymes, primers probes etc. are available today by the metric tonne. The swab shortage could be designed around, but they don't. No one wants to go out on a limb and glue a Q-tip to the end of a thin flexible coffee stirrer, but i bet you it would work. Something thinner in all dimensions and one-piece would be better. Are we really ready to believe that this marvel of swab technology can't be produced at scale in a minimal amount of time from scratch? That we really are screwed because they are largely made in Northern Italy?

heretoo 7y ago

Reminds me of "Contact". Why build one, when you can build two for twice the price? :)

makomk 7y ago

The reason the CDC aren't doing a million tests a day right now is because there is a massive global shortage of every single consumable needed to do this and no easy way to expand manufacturing. Even Germany, which has pretty much the best testing capacity for coronavirus of any country out there in per-capita terms, has been stalled at about 50,000 tests per day for a few weeks and it's not for any lack of desire to expand that. Trusted American media institutions like the New York Times and their Editorial Board have been giving people wildly overblown ideas about what would be possible if it wasn't for the hated Trump and his incompetence for stupid, partisan reasons.

hcknwscommenter 7y ago
There is no doubt that there are shortages of some consumables; namely the swab. But every single? That is utter nonsense. The lysis reagents, extraction reagents, nucleotides, enzymes, primers probes etc. are available today by the metric tonne. The swab shortage could be designed around, but they don't. No one wants to go out on a limb and glue a Q-tip to the end of a thin flexible coffee stirrer, but i bet you it would work. Something thinner in all dimensions and one-piece would be better. Are we really ready to believe that this marvel of swab technology can't be produced at scale in a minimal amount of time from scratch? That we really are screwed because they are largely made in Northern Italy?