United States 2019-NCOVID Testing Ramps Up

AS 2019-NCOVID continues to spread throughout the United States so too does urgency for significantly increasing testing capacity for the virus. “The Trump administration said on Monday that nearly a million tests could be administered for the coronavirus in the United States by the end of this week, a significant escalation of screening as the American death toll reached six and U.S. infections topped 100.” Both public and private sector entities are being leveraged to increase the United States testing capacity in a short amount of time. It is widely expected that as testing capacity expands so too will the number of confirmed cases.

Getting enough testing supplies distributed throughout the country for such a new virus has proven difficult. Last Tuesday and Wednesday only 337 additional testing kits were made available with each kit being capable of testing approximately 350 people. As the virus moves closer to pandemic proportions, it is clear that capacity to address it will have to increase in similar proportion. In addition to increasing testing capacity, the White House is also looking to take steps that could potentially decrease the number of new cases entering the country through an expansion of the existing 2019-NCOVID related travel ban. While details of what countries may be included are still unknown, Italy, South Korea, and Iran seem to be likely candidates due to the scope of their outbreaks.

While work on a vaccine is still moving ahead as quickly as possible it looks as though getting something to market is at a minimum one year away. Additionally, some have been critical of the pace at which testing has occurred. A variety of factors including a focus on keeping the virus out of the country, poor leadership, and faulty test kits have been cited as the cause of delays.

Citation: Weiland, Noah and Emily Cochrane. “Close to a Million Could Be Tested for the Coronavirus This Week, Health Official Says.” The New York Times, 2 March 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/us/politics/coronavirus-testing.html. Accessed 3 March 2020.

Post by Richard Hackmann