Testing Slows When Public Health Experts Say US Needs To Ramp Up
With coronavirus results delayed in many cases, some states say they are limiting the number of test conducted to give labs time to catch up. Other testing and contact tracing developments are also in the news.
Stateline:
To Speed Up Results, States Limit COVID-19 Testing
Limits on testing are anathema to epidemiologists. If enough tests were available and results weren’t delayed as they are now, Landers and other health officials would insist on testing at least twice as many people as they’re testing now. But that’s not realistic in Alabama or most of the rest of the country. Most results are taking much longer than the two-day turnaround epidemiologists say is needed to be effective in stopping the spread. (Vestal, 8/14)
The New York Times:
‘We’re Clearly Not Doing Enough’: Drop In Testing Hampers Coronavirus Response
For months, public health experts and federal officials have said that significantly expanding the number of coronavirus tests administered in the United States is essential to reining in the pandemic. By some estimates, several million people might need to be tested each day, including many people who don’t feel sick. But the country remains far short of that benchmark and, for the first time, the number of known tests conducted each day has fallen. (Mervosh, Bogel-Burroughs and Gay Stolberg, 8/15)
NPR:
What Contact Tracing Data Is Telling Us About How COVID-19 Spreads
When everyone who tests positive for coronavirus in your community gets a call from a public health worker asking them about their contacts and those contacts are then asked to quarantine, the process creates a powerful way to keep the virus from spreading. But contact tracing can do more than that: At scale, the data gathered in those calls also offers vital information about where transmission is happening in a community. That data can drive policy and even guide individuals in assessing what's more or less safe to go out and do. (Simmons-Duffin, 8/14)
AP:
'Are You Doing OK?': On The Ground With NYC Contact Tracers
Joseph Ortiz headed for the home of a stranger who tested positive for COVID-19, unsure how his unexpected visit would go. The person hadn’t answered phone calls from New York City’s contact tracing program, a massive effort to keep the coronavirus from spreading by getting newly diagnosed people to identify others they might have infected before those people spread it further. (Peltz, 8/17)
