The Homa Files

Over the weekend, the NY Times published a long article on the corona virus testing snafus.

The article is relatively balanced and worth reading.

Here are my takeaways from the article…

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• For the most part, the heads of HHS, CDC and FDA deferred test kit development and deployment to the agency scientists.
• In general, the scientists provided the  administration with “incredibly limited” views of the pathogen’s potential impact
  Note: At the March 30 press conference, Dr. Birx admitted that see “didn’t see this coming” … “thought it would be more containable like SARS”
• The C.D.C. gave little thought to adopting the test being used by the W.H.O. The C.D.C. did not think “we needed somebody else’s test.”
• By Jan. 20, just two weeks after Chinese scientists shared the genetic sequence of the virus, the C.D.C. had developed its own test and started deploying it to detect the country’s first coronavirus case.
• Soon after test kits were released,  some state health department labs discovered a problem: the test gave erratic and inconclusive results (i.e. false positives and false negatives)
• The CDC played down the problem in task force meetings, assuring that it would be fixed quickly. It wasn’t.
• When researchers around the country began creating tests, they were hindered by the F.D.A.’s approval process .which required weeks of discussions and negotiations.
• Several test developers got frustrated by the process and discontinued their efforts.

The Times concludes that an effective test kit was finally released, and testing has ramped up quickly, with nearly 100 labs at hospitals and elsewhere performing it.

On Friday, the health care giant Abbott said it had received emergency approval for a portable test that could detect the virus in five minutes.

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This entry was posted on April 1, 2020 at 9:59 am and is filed under Coronavirus - Covid 19. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.