Posted on 04/04/2020 8:40:35 AM PDT by rintintin
In the face of today’s global health pandemic, we are experiencing a time of tremendous uncertainty. As the former CEO of a molecular diagnostic laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I believe advanced diagnostic technologies are ready to address the challenges we face.
Today, Germany is testing between 360,000 to 500,000 citizens for viral infection weekly — tracking the spread of the coronavirus early. This enables self-quarantine for those who test positive and allows healthy individuals to move back to society.
The German Health Ministry is investing 500 million euros to create a database to link hospitals with labs to provide information. In April, they will begin testing for viral immunity — at a scale of 100,000 people a week.
Here, U.S. communities are still asking, “Who is COVID-19 free? Who has antibodies to protect against the virus?”
These two questions must be answered to move the country past our current crisis. As newspapers report, federal and state public health agencies are struggling to move community testing forward.
Unlike Germany, our federal and state governments have spent the last decade spending on other things than meeting the needs of critically ill patients and setting up comprehensive testing programs.
But, as we have seen over the last few weeks, the federal Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid are able to evaluate and approve new diagnostic testing technologies. These new technologies will produce testing results on-site in less than an hour. Working with these latest diagnostic technologies, we should consider another path forward.
(Excerpt) Read more at providencejournal.com ...
Germany also has extra bucks that it doesn’t have to spend on defense. The American taxpayers pick up a lot of that tab. NATO should be disbanded. They are committing suicide by Islam anyway, not from a threat from Russia.
So the people you don’t trust to make adult decisions about protecting their families, neighbors and friends, will be responsible enough to self test every day? And just how would you know who tested and who did not?
Somebody has to do the spreading or we’ll never get over the hump.
We are missing a whole class of people by not starting cheap (in-home?) antibody/serology testing for people that have already had COVID and got over it with minimal/flu-like symptoms and are now immune. They could also help people still sick by giving a plasma donation:
https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/03/13/covid-19-antibody-sera-arturo-casadevall/
Those people could also be “freed up” to leave “lockdown” and go back to work, etc..
According to the latest reports, an effective vaccine against this Chinese virus may be about 18 months out. May God help us all shoulda mutation or repeat infection occur next winter and widespread testing hasn't been completed to at least help contain not so much the virus itself, but the panic and hysteria that's certain to follow.
I 100% agree with that.
The testing mechanism isn’t so easy to create but there are actual brains working on the problem (not just the usual government wankers). American Knowhow and not bureaucracy will do it.
It has to be made to work EN MASSE without some complex lab procedure (needs simple manual procedures) and it has to have a significant accuracy — it has to be mass-produced.
-
When it works, the Economy can get back to normal and the leftist pork-abuse can be canceled/rescinded and ‘rewarded’ properly.
.
Integrated DNA Technologies from Iowa has been producing 5 million tests per week for several weeks. They aren’t the 15 minute kind though.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.