Exclusive: The Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing

[Newest Reality]

At least you can sometimes get a refund for bad service or a faulty product. We don't have that option here. How much does incompetence cost these days? It seems to be very expensive.

“I don’t know what went wrong,” a former CDC chief told The Atlantic.

It’s one of the most urgent questions in the United States right now: How many people have actually been tested for the coronavirus?

This number would give a sense of how widespread the disease is, and how forceful a response to it the United States is mustering. But for days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has refused to publish such a count, despite public anxiety and criticism from Congress. On Monday, Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, estimated that “by the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed” in the United States. On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence promised that “roughly 1.5 million tests” would be available this week.

But the number of tests performed across the country has fallen far short of those projections, despite extraordinarily high demand, The Atlantic has found.

“The CDC got this right with H1N1 and Zika, and produced huge quantities of test kits that went around the country,” Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC from 2009 to 2017, told us. “I don’t know what went wrong this time.”

Through interviews with dozens of public-health officials and a survey of local data from across the country, The Atlantic could only verify that 1,895 people have been tested for the coronavirus in the United States, about 10 percent of whom have tested positive. And while the American capacity to test for the coronavirus has ramped up significantly over the past few days, local officials can still test only several thousand people a day, not the tens or hundreds of thousands indicated by the White House’s promises.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/

[BusyBeingBest]

1. Even with increased testing, how many people would go get tested

if they thought they'd have to be quarantined for weeks? Who can afford to drop out of their own lives like that? This is not financial reality for most Americans.

[Newest Reality]

2. I hear you.

That's yet another issue related to this problem. Handling it more professionally and with good preparation would still be what we would expect from those who are designated and payed to do their job effectively, considering an entire nation is under their watch and the stakes are high in that respect.

The second issue, which is broad, relates to the flaws and weakness of our economic system and its extremely negative impact on at least half of all citizens who are constantly struggling to stay afloat and alive and are therefore highly vulnerable to a disastrous outcome from a pandemic.

While there are scores of issues in that aspect the problem, such as health care, paid sick leave, etc., this may be a time were we get to see the problems come to the surfaces as they emerge in full view and take the cover off of the notion that a "booming" economy is for everyone. A very large segment of people in this country are dangling on the edge of despair, homelessness and great loss. A pandemic could push them off a cliff.

[BigmanPigman]

12. Hear, hear!

[The Genealogist]

3. I zuddenly find myself lucky in this regard. Cold comfort indeed

I work from home. I can exercise at home. I can lay in a supply of food and supplies. Not everyone is so lucky in these dangerous times. If that damned orange idiot hadn't made such a wreck of everything, I think we'd be way better off.

[vlyons]

4. What happens when a stupid malignant narcissist

guts the gov agencies that could get the job done, and who appoints incompetent assholes, whose only real task is to lie and make Trump look good.

[Newest Reality]

5. Heh!

I guess we guinea pigs get to find out first hand and in real time. Can you whistle loud?

[liberalla]

14. I think your response is the most accurate explanation/description ... sad to say...

[Chainfire]

6. The fewer people that are tested

The more it supports Trump's implication that the whole thing is overblown. If you contract the virus, and you are not tested, then you have the seasonal flue. (unless you die) Not testing is camouflage for the failure of the system. Therefore it is not a priority to actually produce the kits.

If millions of test kits were available , so that any suspicion of the virus could be confirmed, the numbers would rise, then the President looks like a bigger fool than he already looks. I do not think that there is a number of victims that Trump would not accept if it made him look better. I really believe that he is that disturbed.

[Chemisse]

8. I completely agree.

No test kits means no coronavirus. Presto! Problem solved, Trump style.

[Mr.Bill]

11. Actually, even if you do die they can still

call it seasonal flu because people do die from that.

[abqtommy]

7. Thomas Frieden doesn't know "what went wrong this time". That just shows that he's not

paying attention...

[Denis Enko]

9. Trump is POTUS

That's the only evidence you need.

[GusBob]

10. What went wrong? Alot

They focused on containment not preparing for contagious spread

And everyone believing Trumps lies

[kairos12]

13. Bring on the clowns, and this is what we get.