raindance
Forum Master
Regarding testing - no it is not available widely yet. Perhaps in some areas. But certainly not country wide.
I watched the full white house press briefing yesterday. Not just the clips. The VP and the health and technical folks with him talked a lot about plans for wider testing. About rolling it out over the course of the next week. And about how even then, tests would need to prioritize on the following people:
medical staff and first responders
people over 65 with a cough and a fever over a certain number (I didn't write down the number, but it was over 99 I think)
Others would not be high priority and would not be tested yet until later when there was more capacity.
And they said they were working on setting up the software to get people into the system and get results to people. And to tell them where to go to get tested (at tents that haven't been set up yet, in parking lots, etc.)
And they said they advised (commercial and other) labs to order all the supplies (pipette tips, etc) to be ready to put large numbers of tests through their systems.
And they said they were going to roll it out in highest affected areas first.
In other words ... it's coming. It might be coming very soon. But it's not actually available widely yet. And it hasn't been.
Straight from the White House press conference. Straight from top officials. Oh yeah, and the first guy that spoke told us how wonderful America is, how great of a job he is doing, how this would just all go through like a wave and then be over, and to relax. But he ducked out before the technical people filled in the details.
If you have lots of testing where you are, great. But shut the heck up in telling us that the rest of us do. We do not.
I watched the full white house press briefing yesterday. Not just the clips. The VP and the health and technical folks with him talked a lot about plans for wider testing. About rolling it out over the course of the next week. And about how even then, tests would need to prioritize on the following people:
medical staff and first responders
people over 65 with a cough and a fever over a certain number (I didn't write down the number, but it was over 99 I think)
Others would not be high priority and would not be tested yet until later when there was more capacity.
And they said they were working on setting up the software to get people into the system and get results to people. And to tell them where to go to get tested (at tents that haven't been set up yet, in parking lots, etc.)
And they said they advised (commercial and other) labs to order all the supplies (pipette tips, etc) to be ready to put large numbers of tests through their systems.
And they said they were going to roll it out in highest affected areas first.
In other words ... it's coming. It might be coming very soon. But it's not actually available widely yet. And it hasn't been.
Straight from the White House press conference. Straight from top officials. Oh yeah, and the first guy that spoke told us how wonderful America is, how great of a job he is doing, how this would just all go through like a wave and then be over, and to relax. But he ducked out before the technical people filled in the details.
If you have lots of testing where you are, great. But shut the heck up in telling us that the rest of us do. We do not.
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