Don't Test, Don't Tell
February 27, 2020·25 comments·Politics
A patient arrives at UC Davis Medical Center already critically ill and suspected to have COVID-19. For four days, the CDC refuses to test him because he doesn't fit their narrow criteria. The result: healthcare workers treating him are exposed to a virus they're not even allowed to know is there. By the time testing finally happens, the damage is already done.
• The criteria aren't a safety filter, they're a testing prevention mechanism. Patients only qualify for COVID-19 testing if they've been to specific countries within exact timeframes or had close contact with confirmed cases. Anyone else, no matter how sick, doesn't fit the definition and therefore can't possibly have the virus.
• Healthcare workers are being unknowingly exposed while following precautions for an undiagnosed threat.They're told to use droplet protection when they should be using airborne precautions. The gap between what the virus actually is and what they're treating for creates a critical vulnerability.
• This isn't about a shortage of tests. It's about tests being restricted by policy. A patient can be symptomatic, suspected of having COVID-19, and still be forbidden from testing. Calling the doctor, the county health authority, the state, the CDC yields the same answer: testing is not allowed.
• The pattern is spreading across the country, not just in California. Nassau County officials are tracking people based only on travel history while ignoring entire regions where the virus is clearly circulating. The criteria create a false sense of control that diverges sharply from where the actual threat is emerging.
• What's at stake is whether the healthcare system becomes a source of contagion instead of healing. In Wuhan, over 30% of healthcare workers fell victim to COVID-19 because the government prioritized maintaining a narrative of containment over protecting those on the frontline. The question isn't whether this policy fails. It's whether failure happens before or after the system collapses.
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Comments
Can you please make this into a .pdf. I’ve been sharing these with my “pack”… Thank you!
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.” ~ Jean-Claude Juncker, former President of the European Commission, May 2011
Agreed! We need more of these in PDF. They just don’t print well.
Could it be there is a shortage of test kits and the criteria are a rationing mechanism?
Ben, what changes have you made, if any, in your personal life in response to this? Do you think domestic travel limitations make sense in the US?
Killer Math: CA’s governor just announced the state is “monitoring” 8,400 patients for potential CoVid-19 infection and has only 200 test kits. (source ft.com)
Whee!
Yep! It’s up now.
I think there’s a shortage of test kits in the US from sheer incompetence, but the criteria are the result of an entirely different sort of sheer incompetence.
You’re exactly right. Same thing happening in Canada right now. Same attitude/approach during SARS. I was a physician during SARS in Toronto at the time. Nothing has changed at all, unfortunately. Only a singular ability to avoid any introspection by the respective public health/government officials who are in charge of coordinating a rational response… Thanks for writing this entire series.
After watching Little Hands Wednesday night, I was apprehensive as to the market’s response today. Appropriately so. But, his grasp of the situation is typical of his grasp - or is that what the market is telling us?
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