Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Virus Detection: Monitoring Colorado Wastewater; Contact Tracing On Reservations
Denver Post: Colorado To Test Wastewater For Signs Of COVID-19 Outbreaks Before Symptoms Start
The state health department, two universities and 16 wastewater utilities are partnering to search for signs of new COVID-19 cases before infected people even have symptoms — by looking for the disease in poop. Sampling wastewater provides an “early warning” system at the population level, John Putnam, environmental programs director at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said on a press call Wednesday morning. Most people start shedding the virus in their feces about two days after infection – before they’ve developed symptoms and sought testing, he said. While the testing isn’t precise enough to say that someone’s infected in a particular household or neighborhood, it gives a signal of whether cases are increasing or decreasing. (Wingerter, 8/12)
The New York Times: On Native American Land, Contact Tracing Is Saving Lives
The coronavirus is raging through the White Mountain Apache tribe. Spread across a large reservation in eastern Arizona, the Apaches have been infected at more than 10 times the rate of people in the state as a whole. Yet their death rate from Covid-19 is far lower, just 1.3 percent, as compared with 2.1 percent in Arizona. Epidemiologists have a hopeful theory about what led to this startling result: Intensive contact tracing on the reservation likely enabled teams that included doctors to find and treat gravely ill people before it was too late to save them. (Kolata, 8/13)
Politico: Testing Mess Leaves Texas In The Dark As Cases Spike
Covid-19 testing is a mess in Texas. More than one-in-five Texans who are tested for coronavirus are positive, the worst statewide rate in the country. But the number of people getting tests has plummeted in the last two weeks, which could understate how widespread the virus really is as schools reopen and hospitalizations and deaths remain near record highs. (Goldberg, 8/13)
Sacramento Bee: Still No COVID-19 Rapid Testing In Some CA Nursing Homes
The Trump administration in July pledged to send rapid coronavirus testing machines to to nursing homes in hot spots around the country, but they have not yet arrived at some outbreak-challenged sites in the San Joaquin Valley. Nursing homes in the region are eligible for the machines because the federal government considers the Central Valley to be a hot spot for the novel coronavirus that has about 160,000 Americans this year. (Irby, 8/13)
In other testing and tracing news —
The Hill: Top Trump Official 'Really Tired Of Hearing' Criticism Over COVID-19 Testing
The Trump administration official in charge of the country's COVID-19 testing strategy said Thursday that the U.S. is doing enough testing and dismissed critics who say otherwise. “It is just a false narrative — and I’m really tired of hearing it by people not involved in the system — that we need millions of tests every day,” said Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, on a call with reporters. “If that were true, we would not be reversing the outbreaks we have,” he added. (Hellmann, 8/13)
NPR: Should You Get Tested For Coronavirus Before You Travel To Visit Family?
Like everything with this pandemic, the answer is complicated. The infectious disease experts I spoke to told me there are two reasons why testing might not be very helpful. The first has to do with the length of time it takes to get your test results back these days — up to a week or more in some places for PCR tests. By the time you get your results back, you could have unknowingly been exposed to the virus, making the original test irrelevant. (Davis, 8/13)
AP: UK Begins Testing A New App To Fight COVID-19 Spread
Britain started testing a new smartphone app Thursday to help people find out whether they’ve been close to someone infected with COVID-19 after security concerns torpedoed an earlier effort to use technology to track the disease. The Department of Health and Social Care said that trials of the app began on the Isle of Wight, with testing in the London borough of Newham scheduled to begin soon. The app, which was developed in conjunction with privacy experts and companies such as Google and Apple, is similar to technology being used in Germany and Ireland. (8/13)
