I don’t know when this interview was, but I’m surprised to see no mention of sputum testing as a replacement for Nasopharyngeal RT-PCR. I don’t know the precis

I don’t know when this interview was, but I’m surprised to see no mention of sputum testing as a replacement for Nasopharyngeal RT-PCR. I don’t know the precise number, but probably at least a dozen of these spit tests have been developed at Universities and approved by the FDA for emergency use. Some even use the LAMP protocol as opposed to RT-PCR, which saves on time and reagents. Another thing I always think of is how we didn’t adopt the contact tracing protocol that Google and Apple developed. Obviously it was a trust issue, and maybe some logistical shortcomings, but contact tracing as we’ve implemented it is largely ineffectual in reducing spread. The serial interval in young people is likely less than the time it takes to get back a test, and certainly shorter than the time it takes to get a test and complete a contact tracing interview. The US response to Covid is obviously a polarizing issue, but we’re all wrong to assume that we couldn’t have done better.