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It's only impossible in the us because we have a failure at the federal level. South Korea, Taiwan, Israel have better testing than the US. Even China can test

It's only impossible in the us because we have a failure at the federal level. South Korea, Taiwan, Israel have better testing than the US. Even China can test to it's hearts content. Not us, because we aren't even trying collectively. In Washington State there was an article in the Seattle Times about the national guard having 30 people manually putting test kits together. Why aren't they making them in a factory? Because we aren't organized enough, we don't have supplies, etc.

whalesalad 6y ago
Exactly. So it’s an unattainable pipe-dream metric. This is more reason to stop spouting these numbers to people as the “official target for reopening”
makomk 6y ago
South Korea has been testing less people than the US no matter how you slice it - per-capita or total, all-time or current testing rate - either way the US is doing more Covid-19 tests. (And as far as I can tell, Taiwan has tested far less people than South Korea in turn.) The US media has just managed to convince people that the opposite is true. It's not even close either - 14 per thousand in South Korea versus 30 per thousand in the US apparently[1], and current testing rate has even more of a gap. If there's some criteria for the testing rate that the US or any part of it isn't meeting, it's a safe bet that South Korea or most other countries aren't either - even all other countries for some of the more extreme ones being pushed by the media. A number of people on here have made this claim, and every time I try and point out that it's the complete and exact opposite of the truth it gets downvoted. It seems to be something everyone on HN firmly believes. Maybe I should give up? Trying to get coronavirus testing-related comparisons to bear any resemblance to actual numbers feels more and more like eternally tilting at windmills. (Admittedly, the media has done a good job on this one. There was even a really bizarre, cynical part in the last Trump press conference where he claimed that all US states are now testing more than South Korea and a reporter accused him of making "this a global competition", as though it was him and not the press that had been pushing this comparison - and all the media discussion became about his row with that journalist, ensuring that no-one heard about the underlying facts and updated their false belief that the US was behind South Korea in testing due to the federal government fucking up. Masterfully done. Practically Trumpian.) Now, Israel is genuinely doing more testing than the US, but you'd kind of hope for that from a much smaller country with a big globally-relevant pharmaceutical industry. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

whalesalad 6y ago

Exactly. So it’s an unattainable pipe-dream metric. This is more reason to stop spouting these numbers to people as the “official target for reopening”

makomk 6y ago

South Korea has been testing less people than the US no matter how you slice it - per-capita or total, all-time or current testing rate - either way the US is doing more Covid-19 tests. (And as far as I can tell, Taiwan has tested far less people than South Korea in turn.) The US media has just managed to convince people that the opposite is true. It's not even close either - 14 per thousand in South Korea versus 30 per thousand in the US apparently[1], and current testing rate has even more of a gap. If there's some criteria for the testing rate that the US or any part of it isn't meeting, it's a safe bet that South Korea or most other countries aren't either - even all other countries for some of the more extreme ones being pushed by the media. A number of people on here have made this claim, and every time I try and point out that it's the complete and exact opposite of the truth it gets downvoted. It seems to be something everyone on HN firmly believes. Maybe I should give up? Trying to get coronavirus testing-related comparisons to bear any resemblance to actual numbers feels more and more like eternally tilting at windmills. (Admittedly, the media has done a good job on this one. There was even a really bizarre, cynical part in the last Trump press conference where he claimed that all US states are now testing more than South Korea and a reporter accused him of making "this a global competition", as though it was him and not the press that had been pushing this comparison - and all the media discussion became about his row with that journalist, ensuring that no-one heard about the underlying facts and updated their false belief that the US was behind South Korea in testing due to the federal government fucking up. Masterfully done. Practically Trumpian.) Now, Israel is genuinely doing more testing than the US, but you'd kind of hope for that from a much smaller country with a big globally-relevant pharmaceutical industry. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/