I first heard about this on Hear Say with Cathy Lewis. It is nice to see things are ramping up in the testing department. And in what appears to be an efficient manner.
My personal concern was that the first couple in VB were identified through testing at Sentara Princess Anne… around the same time my mother-in-law was in the ER after falling and breaking her right hip that Saturday night. She’s in rehab now and we are waiting to find out if they are going to be testing the residents there that have recently transferred in from SVBPA.
This testing is not going to be as useful as people seem to think.
First, if you don’t have a fever, you won’t be tested. That’s not due ti shortage, it’s because the false negative rate is so high before fever sets in that people who are infected but who test too early will get the false idea that they can circulate. Of course, by the time you have fever, you have been spreading it for days.
Second, it won’t change your course of treatment. You won’t be admitted into the hospital because you test positive, the hospital will only take you if you need help breathing, and the test doesn’t tell you that. If you have the symptoms, you should be self quarantining well before the test could get back.
So, testing is useful in giving epidemiologists data to track the disease, but it won’t really make much difference to you.
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All true, but that data will prove useful in targeting and guesstimating time frames that can guide relief efforts.
ICU beds and ventilators continue to be a serious concern.
Fingers crossed…..
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NYC is really sweating. 80% of their ICU beds are already occupied.
Their problem is that of density. Flattening the curve is critical for any densely populated area.
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Of course, the results will be limited if the government takes a ‘do as we say, not as we do’ attitude.
We’re told not to gather in groups of 10, but the Navy shipyard has 200 people working in the spaces of a submarine in the yard.
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But their “working”, not gathering. 😁
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