Long lines, low supplies: Why the US still hasn't gotten testing right.
An informed guide to the global outbreak, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment. |
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The dire state of testing |
It’s déjà vu. With cases rising in 37 states, scenes from the early days of the pandemic — when people waited for hours in snaking lines to get a test — are being replayed in many parts of the country. Though the U.S. has greatly ramped up its testing capability, performing nearly three times as many tests in June as in April, a surge of infections has ushered in a new crisis. |
In New Orleans, one testing site ran out of tests five minutes after it opened yesterday. Arizona, which once had a stockpile of testing supplies, has run out of basic items since new cases began spiking last month. In Idaho, where the state lab has been swamped, officials told long-term care facilities that the state could no longer meet all their testing needs. |
Experts say that fast, widely available testing is critical for stamping out the virus, but officials in some areas have had to return to former restrictions, limiting tests to only those with symptoms. |
The lack of federal coordination has left some states and cities competing for resources, and makers of high-volume testing machines have started prioritizing sales to states with bigger outbreaks. |
New York City was able to boost its capacity to 30,000 tests per day only after it created its own testing kits and partnered with private labs — and even then, the numbers have lagged far behind other countries, particularly in Asia, where cities have tested millions of people in a matter of days. |
The future of testing: Researchers around the world are racing to develop reliable “point-of-care” tests that give results in under an hour and could be done in a doctor’s office or even at home. The rapid tests on the market today are often inaccurate, and the new ones are still months away from being in clinics. |
A cautionary tale from Sweden |
The decision to forgo a lockdown in Sweden was expected to spare the country from financial devastation, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Not only is Sweden’s death rate from the virus disproportionately high, but its economy has suffered similarly to its Scandinavian neighbors, which enacted aggressive early measures to control outbreaks — and have had far fewer deaths. |
Sweden is a cautionary case study for places hoping for an economic revival as they reopen prematurely or trying to avoid another shutdown despite surging new cases. The Swedish economy is expected to shrink 4.5 percent this year, compared to 4.1 percent in Denmark and 3.9 percent in Norway. Unemployment has also increased. “They literally gained nothing,” one researcher said. |
How could this happen in a country that remained open? The virus seems to be the real enemy of economic prosperity, not stay-at-home orders. Sweden’s manufacturing sector has been shut down by holes in the supply chain. And while stores and restaurants can continue to welcome consumers, many people have been scared off. Credit data from one of the largest banks in Scandinavia shows that Swedes cut back on spending by 25 percent from mid-March to April — nearly as much as Danes during the same period. |
What else we’re following |
| Every day I triage and treat people with Covid-19 and a variety of other medical problems via telemedicine while “working from home.” I had no idea when I started doing this what an important role telemedicine would come to play in the pandemic. |
| — Dr. Mark L. Friedman, Newbury, N.H. |
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