Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
'We Acted Like An Army': How South Korea Mobilized Its Health Experts To Put Easy, Comprehensive Testing In Place
Reuters: Special Report: How Korea Trounced U.S. In Race To Test People For Coronavirus
In late January, South Korean health officials summoned representatives from more than 20 medical companies from their lunar New Year celebrations to a conference room tucked inside Seoul’s busy train station. One of the country’s top infectious disease officials delivered an urgent message: South Korea needed an effective test immediately to detect the novel coronavirus, then running rampant in China. He promised the companies swift regulatory approval. Though there were only four known cases in South Korea at that point, “we were very nervous. We believed that it could develop into a pandemic,” one attendee, Lee Sang-won, an infectious diseases expert at the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters. (Terhune, Levine, Jin and Lee, 3/18)
The Wall Street Journal: America Needed Coronavirus Tests. The Government Failed.
When cases of the new coronavirus began emerging several weeks ago in California, Washington state and other pockets of the country, U.S. public-health officials worried this might be The Big One, emails and interviews show. The testing program they rolled out to combat it, though, was a small one.Limited testing has blinded Americans to the scale of the outbreak so far, impeding the nation’s ability to fight the virus through isolating the sick and their contacts, public-health officials say. As of early Wednesday, about 6,500 people in the U.S. had tested positive, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University show, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported only about 32,000 tests conducted at its facilities and other public-health labs. (Weaver, McKay and Abbott, 3/18)
The New York Times: Need A Coronavirus Test? Being Rich And Famous May Help
Politicians, celebrities, social media influencers and even N.B.A. teams have been tested for the new coronavirus. But as that list of rich, famous and powerful people grows by the day, so do questions about whether they are getting access to testing that is denied to other Americans. Some of these high-profile people say they are feeling ill and had good reason to be tested. Others argue that those who were found to be infected and then isolated themselves provided a good example to the public. (Twohey, Eder and Stein, 3/18)
The Associated Press: Celebrities Get Virus Tests, Raising Concerns Of Inequality
Asked about the issue Wednesday, President Donald Trump said the well-to-do and well-connected shouldn’t get priority for coronavirus tests. But the wealthy former reality star conceded that the rich and famous sometimes get perks. “Perhaps that’s been the story of life,” Trump said during a briefing at the White House. “That does happen on occasion. And I’ve noticed where some people have been tested fairly quickly.” (Biesecker, Smith and Reynolds, 3/19)
NPR: U.S. Coronavirus Testing Starts To Ramp Up But Still Lags
As the Trump administration scrambles to make more coronavirus tests available, demand for testing still outstrips availability. Most experts are pushing for making more testing available even faster, but some also question some of the steps the government is taking to try to make that happen.More than 71,000 tests have been done so far in the U.S., according to the Covid Tracking Project, and thousands more are being conducted each week by federal and state labs, hospitals and private companies, officials say. (Stein, 3/18)
Modern Healthcare: Some Providers Suspend Drive-Through COVID-19 Testing
A lack of critical COVID-19 tests is forcing some drive-through testing sites to temporarily shut down.Both Sentara Healthcare and M Health Fairview announced they have suspended drive-through testing sites to preserve their limited supply of testing supplies. Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara announced Wednesday it would temporarily close its drive-through locations beginning at 2 p.m. (Bannow, 3/18)
CNN: US Coronavirus Cases Soar Past 8,700 As Officials Try To Head Off Overwhelming Effects
The number of coronavirus cases in the United States keeps jumping each day by the hundreds, pushing health care officials and political leaders to take steps to keep the pandemic from overwhelming the system. The battle is to get equipment and beds to doctors and nurses and to stem the economic fallout by taking measures to provide financial relief. (Yan, Maxouris and Almasy, 3/19)
Boston Globe: Long Backlogs For Coronavirus Test Results Frustrate Mass. Doctors
The wait for coronavirus test results in Massachusetts can last as long as a week, a delay that exacerbates equipment shortages, frustrates worried patients and families, and hamstrings front line health care workers’ efforts to combat the growing pandemic. Faster test results can help determine which patients need to be treated by medical staff in protective gear. (Ryan and Lazar, 3/18)
