Why does this administration constantly over promise and under deliver? This practice may be how Trump swings business deals, but it doesn't work with public health epidemics!
10
have you written about why theres no test kits in US? supposedly CDC decided not to use WHO's version, tried & failed to make their own.
1
No need for testing. The disease is a hoax perpetrated by Democrats.
3
Even in normal times, the conservatives are always blocking action and slow to respond until the disaster has actually arrived because of their general scorn of science. Now that they have morphed into the Trump Party and following the banner of anti-science that their leader has been waving, it will result in people's deaths.
3
How much have the current budget cuts at CDC and HSS affected the response? Does anybody know?
2
A healthcare online publication, STAT, has an arrival written by a Seattle scientist who does healthcare research. He says that today, Seattle is precisely at the same point that Wuhan was on January 1.
The scientists points out that because CDC had faulty tests and a lab contamination issue, the testing of cases has been inadequate in Seattle, just as it was in Wuhan. The scientist says in all likely Seattle has at least 500-600 cases now, most misting symptoms for colds or flu. And that it is enough for the cases to explode.
With out aggressive testing and control of crowd size pronto, he predicts the Seattle cases will soon be multiplying faster.
3
Would love to know how many former Trump supporters are having second thoughts now.
4
This testing situation is a joke. The government is saying one thing (anyone can get tested) and doing another (testing only very sick and specifically connected people to those who have traveled). That means that in King County WA, those that have been infected by the community, which is estimated to be approximately 500 people, are not being tested. Manipulating the numbers will not keep people from getting sick. It will do the opposite. Hundreds of older and compromised people will be infected and may suffer serious symptoms and shortages of care because of the local, state and federal governments failure to get this right. Shame on our leaders.
7
Judging by the dour facial expressions of these Trump Administration officials, they know they are failing - us. But, they are more afraid of failing Trump who only cares about the "big stuff" - winning re-election. So, we citizens are in double trouble.
8
The question now is whether the 15,000 testing kits Vice President Pence promised would be delivered to the field over the weekend were actually delivered. Does anyone know?
Second, will the "close to 1 million" kits Commissioner Hahn promised b y the end of the week actually get delivered by Danaher sub IDT? Unless proven otherwise, Seems likely the answer is no and no. Given that we have now been flying blind for weeks on spread data with no end in sight, I would also volunteer that the government's response has so far been an train wreck.
4
Why do we need US made tests when test kits made in other countries are available?
How come his "great country" cannot make it in time when others can?
Scandal!
9
supposedly CDC tried & failed to make its own version!
1
One thing we don’t see in news reports is the accuracy of tests for covid-19, *including* the probability of false positives. This is an important underlying issue with reports about the numbers of people who have tested “positive” for the virus.
Related: Will the government speedily assess the accuracy of tests they’re encouraging private companies and academic labs to develop and distribute? Rapid deployment of ineffective tests could be disastrous.
4
My god the level of incompetence is staggering, and to think this is an election year when you would assume a president would be on his A-game . Can you imagine Trump in a second term with a similar crises. It’s almost as if this is happening to test Trump and he is failing on every level because he simply wasn't prepared and he has surrounded himself with sycophants rather than the best and the brightest.
9
Covid-19 is not going away like a miracle in the springtime. Sounds like Pence is talking just pray and it will all go away in US.
God leafing this one and its not to reelect Trump to create Trump religion as supreme!
A few days ago, I read that the State of California had 100 test available (although South Korea tests 10,000 people a day). From 100 to a million, that sounds like a Trumpian miracle (hyperbole?)
3
Each lab test kit can be used to test a couple hundred patient samples.
3
Estimates "fall short"? Quote: "Over the weekend, Vice President Mike Pence made similar claims, appearing on television to say that more than 15,000 test kits — which contain materials to test between 700 to 800 samples — were being shipped to labs.
In fact, the C.D.C. said Sunday it had shipped about 47 such kits. . . ."
47 versus 15,000 is not "falling short." It is a outrageous lie, and saying it is grotesquely irresponsible. People will die because of this.
Would you trust these people to run a fast food joint? A bingo game? A street corner three-card monte confidence game? I wouldn't!
11
This is yet another story about how the US wasn't prepared to diagnose the novel coronavirus. How about a story about why we were unprepared?
Look around, countries with far fewer resources than the US have achieved much higher levels of testing at comparable stages of virus presentation. Why is this?
And exactly how are other affected countries handling the medical indigency of infected persons? The only thing I've seen from the US is the possibility that CMS will reimburse hospitals at 120% of Medicare rate for all hospitalized coronavirus 19 patients. But what about dr visits and missed work?
Is our fetish with personal freedom and accountability at the expense of any vestige of a social contract finally imploding?
11
Other countries confirm by chest CR scam as they are out of test kits. Works pretty well.
1
You cannot know the scope of the problem without testing. All claims of good or bad news are inaccurate without widespread testing.
9
Making America Great Again!
Why don't they just order their test kits from the Philippines or China? They (and Europe) have been having them ready for over a month now.
11
If "all is well", why has the CDC stopped posting the number tested and the number found positive on its website?
And why do I find myself thinking of the way the words "climate change" disappeared from the EPA's site?
14
Whenever Trump or his surrogates talk, I just assume it is a lie, So far, batting 1000.
14
Elections have consequences.
12
Why does Pence always have that same feigned serious face in EVERY photo? I bet his mind is a million miles away. He seems like such a caricature .... like everyone else is this mad administration.
8
The CDC is no longer reporting the number of tests administered. As recently as two days ago, it was. See Mark Pocan's call to the CDC to resume reporting this information. https://twitter.com/repmarkpocan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Eembeddedtimeline%7Ctwterm%5Eprofile%3Arepmarkpocan&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpocan.house.gov%2F
But this is all part of Trump's playbook. Don't test obviously ill people. Then there is no record of theme every having the virus, and any deaths cannot be attributed to it. Dear Leader wants to cut off the public's access to data about this virus and its spread, and how serious it is actually becoming. Then he may coast to the November election, claiming another one of his idiotic "successes".
More lies from this "president".
13
Excellent reporting, thanks for following up on this. The lack of testing is yet another failure of the U.S. healthcare system, Chernobyl-esque in it's magnitude and perniciousness. Was Dr. Hahn the same party responsible for restricting U.S. use of the WHO test kits?
7
On 2/27/2020 broadcast (last Thursday), California Governor Gavin Newsom gave a 20 minute report on the web/TV. California could only get 200 COVID-19 test kits from the CDC. So California sent to private companies in CA to design and manufacture better test kits which would have much quicker results and which could either be processed in many local labs or would provide the result directy to the healthare provided giving the test to a person suspected to have the virus.
The new California tests are much less expensive and can be mass produced and processed in many authorized labs. A test which will yield immediate results is in the works and expected in a few weeks to a few months. South Korea sells a great test kit (one ompany there can make 100,000 per hour). The CDC just gave CA permission to use it!
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) lacks enough of the current tests approved by the CDC and which have weeks delay at the two (or a very small number, very backed up) which are authorized by the CDC to process the tests - there is a weeks delay. This means that those kits can really identify only those people who have already likely died if they did have the Cornoa virus, or who obviously did have it because they were smehow able to survive the virus.
Bottom line: Trump's CDC has only a tiny fraction of the tests needed, and the tests can't be processed fast enough. Was Trump trying to set up manufacturing opportunities for his supporters?
13
If Gallop did some polling asking Americans if they thought that Trump and Pence, by their continuing falsehoods and incompetence, deserved to contract the virus themselves, what do you think the result would be?
13
Promises, promises. Trump and his lackeys wouldn't know the truth if it hit them square in the face. They ALL say what Trump tells them to, and God forbid they give independent, accurate information! WE CANNOT TRUST WHAT THIS ADMINISTRATION TELLS US - they lie incessantly. Get rid of them and elect real public servants, not Republicans.
11
Hilarious in a “sick way” - no pun intended.
So 100 facilities would be able to test 10,000 specimens per day! However, one of the federal ringleaders says fewer than half in reality are able to do so. And there have been very few tests run because of the criteria deemed by authorities for running and obtaining a “test”. Many people couldn’t even get a “test” if they really needed to!
Always back to the same old excuse - “If we had been able to test earlier.....”
And why weren’t they able? Because the Coronavirus Czar, Mike Pence, was chosen to “lead the way” having no medical experience, background, or medical leaders. Alex Azar is a pharmaceutical attorney and he heads the US Health and Human Services, go figure, but on the “committee”. Others were told to keep quiet or were not brought into the equation.
And our president was joking about washing hands and telling the world this is a Democratic hoax.
Wondering what the families around the world - and now in the US - who have lost loved ones think of this Democratic hoax.
No one can even do the math, let alone lead.
11
It seems like the government's goal is to convince everyone that there are millions of tests while at the same time avoiding testing at all costs. They don't really want to know how many people have Coronavirus because it will cast a poor light on our leadership. I'm sure behind closed doors Trump is insisting that we limit testing to only those with severe symptoms.
13
@figure8 You're right, it seems that from the beginning the Trump administration's goal is to keep the "deflated" number of infected as low as possible. Think of the consequences:
We could end up with hundreds of thousands infected who would live a normal life, meeting older or sick family members, traveling, and carrying a virus that we don't know yet how is it going to behave or react or mutate or disappear or get stronger...
10
What if Mr. Trump would have kept in place the team created by President Obama after the 2014 Ebola virus crisis?
He would have started preparing for a possible world pandemic in late December or early January instead of late February.
He could had learned about the economic fallout weeks in advance and could had coordinated a response with other world leaders.
He could had provided China with experienced personnel and equipment to help contain infection earlier.
We could have had much more working test kits ready and distributed around the country.
He could had analyzed and improve the testing criteria earlier so that more possible carriers of the virus could be identified.
He wouldn't have had to name Mr. Pence as head of the crisis team.
but instead we have what we have...
16
Seriously Washington, do something now. The only action you have taken is to put Mike Pence in charge and drop the interest rate 50 basis points. How does either action help this?
I work in SF and my office is down about 70% of normal capacity today. We simply do not believe you when you say it is safe and people are taking their own measures to self quarantine.
This is not the flu. The death rate is at minimum 10x higher, likely more. We do not know. We need isolation measures now, and maybe full quarantines for the northwest USA. Start taking this seriously, Washington.
16
There is something about testing that i don’t understand.
Our local university hospital has just changed parameters of DNA sequencer to detect covirus. And a robot was installed Monday that can sequence 20 samples in parallel.
I have not heard about ´test kits’ needed in Milano (20k plus tests done), nor on South Korea.
Mayby NYT can describe whole story, why is there a need for commercial test kits?
8
Because FDA and CDC found that the CDC labs trying to make initial kits were contaminated—something they did not want to reveal to the public as the bottleneck in production occurred.
Only belatedly asking other labs to help catch up on manufacturing.
1
Promises, promises. Trump and his laces wouldn't know the turret if it hit them square in the face. They ALL say what Trump tells the, and God forbid they give independent, accurate information!
WE CANNOT TRUST WHAT THIS ADMINISTRATION TELLS US - they lie incessantly. Get rid of them and elect real public servants, not Republicans.
10
My cynical side can't help but think some slow, incompetent, Republican-connected US companies are trying to cash in on this ... given that a $300 million contract was given to an unqualified Republican two-man outfit in Montana to rebuild Puerto Rico's electric grid after Maria.. until it was rescinded per backlash.
It's said China was testing 10,000 people per day (with capacity to test 1.2M/week) and South Korea has tested over 100,000, while the US has tested 3,600, and the CDC removed the "number of tested" data from their website.
The ONLY way to get in front of this is to identify carriers and have them stay home while treating serious cases. China's effort has yielded a decrease in new cases, to a point where they're closing a temporary 1200-bed hospital. We should already be using WHO approved test kits from other sources, especially after the Travis AFB fiasco, instead of talking about what we'll do in the future.
We'll know a lot more in 2 to 4 weeks about the US situation.
13
A quick search reveals that there are updated test kits coming from China, the Philippines and Europe that both expand access and significantly shorten the test time to identify COVID-19 infections, in some cases to 15 minutes or less. I see no indications that the CDC is working to coordinate US access to the best available testing technology. Instead they seem to be paralyzed by a "not invented here" syndrome that assumes US science and health technology is always better than anyone else's. Worse yet, Big Pharma's profit motive has kicked in to limit kits to those produced by companies we like. This kind of hubris will add at least an order of magnitude to the American death toll from this pandemic. Maybe Trump believes this will improve his chances for reelection.
10
Though I completely revile this government, is this shortfall really their fault? The private sector has stripped everything to the bone for profit or the manufacturing to Communist China, the seat of the epidemic. There’s where the fault lies. Put the blame right in the lap of the 1%'ers
1
@HANK - Well the current head of our government makes his products in China so yes, you can partially blame him.
9
Yes, it is a serious government error that key CDC labs were contaminated sites for days, just when we needed them to produce kits!
The USA under president Trump: "bringing up the rear"
7
Doomed.
6
The Fed cut is Trump's cure for those are sick...
7
trump·er·y
noun: trumpery; plural noun: trumperies
1. attractive articles of little value or use.
practices or beliefs that are superficially or visually appealing but have little real value or worth.
adjective: trumpery
1. showy but worthless.
"trumpery jewelry"
How did so many people miss this definition back in 2016?
10
"Dr. Hahn was not the only Trump administration official to promise radically expanded testing. Over the weekend, Vice President Mike Pence made similar claims, appearing on television to say that more than 15,000 test kits — which contain materials to test between 700 to 800 samples — were being shipped to labs.
In fact, the C.D.C. said Sunday it had shipped about 47 such kits."
Telling the boss what he wants to hear doesn't reassure the public if what he wants to hear is a lie.
10
Where is the trickle down from all those tax cuts for the wealthy? Shouldn't that trickle be lifting up the economy?
8
Go figure. Like China, like North Korea, like Russia, like America. Goverments deny, cover up and lie. Worse, they misinform. When we need them most, where is our leader? Blaming, making things up, casting aspersions, or flat out lying. All of this when we need him to be problem solving and reassuring. This starts with truths.
47
@Easy Goer
Trump said at his news conference Saturday that all we need to do is leave the room if anyone sneezes. Like he does - "when anybody sneezes, I'm out of there fast".
Brave, brave leader.
13
@Easy Goer Just as a reminder, the ebola crisis in 2014 was managed effectively in an extremely dangerous environment. I just wonder what would have happened then if the government had been hollowed out as is now has and if the person in charge had not had the best interests of the country at heart instead of his own.
5
@cycledancing
Truly, it was contained. We know more about Ebola. It is far more deadly than COVID19; however, this has (apparently)a much higher R/0 figure. My point is we don't have truths when we need them most.
2
Just to be clear, are we talking about the real FDA/CDC/NIH or the spin factory run by Pence?
10
From what HHS is telling us as reported in this article, more people were tested on that cruise ship in Japan than have been tested in the whole of the U.S. so far. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/6/20-0452
Some data from the cruise ship, in which people were quarantined once the virus was recognized as being on the ship:
4061 tested
705 tested positive. Of those
392 asymptomatic
36 required ICU care
6 died
Lots of data still to come I'm sure (ages, etc.), as this article was focused on a couple of mildly symptomatic cases.
8
If this US coronavirus fiasco and utter incompetence of our administration doesn’t convince Democrats to vote blue no matter who, then the Dems are not the only ones who vote against their interests. I can’t believe some Dems still say they won’t vote unless X becomes the nominee, that trump would be preferable to X.
8
Adequate supply of test kits is absolutely essential to get this virus under control. The severe shortage of test kits is a significant fraud risk when even the CDC has sent out bad kits. On top of everything else, the Federal government from the White House on down shows no intention of being honest with the public.
6
This is the Achilles heal of the outbreak fpr us - a total lack of testing DESPITE knowing about the virus in December. This is pn Trump and his anti-science agenda. When science conflicts with ideology, science and the public lose every single time.
10
No tests = no disease. Trumpian logic.
10
I really didn't think my opinion of him could get any worse ... man, was I wrong.
It was bad enough when his "gut" instructed the administration to make bad decisions ... now the back of his mind realization that I'm-incompetent-and-I-don't-know-what-to-do anxiety is in full bloom has me second guessing how REALLY bad this is going to get before he goes into full meltdown.
His forcing agencies to make the same idiotic promises he's so fond of making, is only going to make this so much worse when it can't be realized.
Their "test" is going to amount to visual clues and checking temperatures for the majority of these patients ... it will be a PR diagnosis.
9
“ Elect “ a Reality TV Conman: Get incompetence and unnecessary Deaths.
NOVEMBER.
8
Yesterday's press conference with Pence, Burks, Azar was a disgrace.
All that smiling and grinning by Burks, Azar with his "I'm so delighted," Pence constantly worshipping Trump, even Fauci "I'm so pleased!" while those poor souls in WA were dying, they all stood there, smiling, celebrating what a great job they're doing. I thought any minute Burks was going to start laughing and clapping! She was shameless.
I've never before felt this betrayal by my government. What are they thinking?!
13
How can any physician serve on the VPPCC (Vice President Pence Cover-up Committee)? Did they take the Hypocritic Oath instead of the Hippocratic Oath? -- "Do no harm to Trump!"?
9
Trump floated the idea Saturday of closing the border with Mexico to keep out coronavirus.
After which Mexico's president pointed out that his country has no cases while America has 75 (at least). He didn't go on to say he was considering closing the border with the U.S., but the implication was clear.
8
Hey, goes right along with Trump’s nuclear deal with North Korea, the Chinese trade agreement, Mexico will pay for the wall, etc., etc....
There are seriological test kits available in China, why aren’t we bringing those in by the hundreds of thousands, and testing?
4
Stretch goal. Projections will be met in a few weeks. Be positive.
how about the truth. post number of tests each day an results. the truth will set you free.
6
Assuming that everybody is destined to get this virus. Wherever you may be, look left and right. Count 100 people including yourself . Two of you will die form the disease. That is scary. Why isn't the President worried. Why is he lowering interest rates? What is that supposed to do?
9
@sues :
Cut taxes for the rich. It fixes literally everything.
Only liberals do not understand this.
5
The President isn’t worried because he counts on his lies and claims of fake news to get him by.
5
@sues
All Trump is worried about is his Trump, Inc. brand.
Thus the interest rate cut to prop up "his" stock market.
5
Electoral America voted over and over for decades to shrink government AND to get government totally out of healthcare.
Keep voting GOP for these goals.
7
And keep letting the poor and middle class suffer so the rich can get richer.
Sad you think the GOP is on your side.
6
More lies and liars from Trump and his administration.
9
The sad reality of the Trump Administration falsely claiming a million COVID-19 tests can be performed in a week is that the public may believe this can instantly solve the spread of infections.
Even at that purposefully exaggerated weekly rate it would take years to test everyone; and each positive person and likely contacts would need isolation.
The most likely epidemiological prediction is that while massive testing and isolation policies might slow infections – and that is certainly beneficial for not overwhelming the healthcare system -- exponential infection will persist until most people have been infected, recovered, and made antibodies capable of preventing subsequent infections from constantly evolving COVID-19 strains.
The genie is out of the box, and millions will die prematurely before safe & effective antiviral drugs & immunization technologies are available.
Development of these is also not something that can occur via a Trumpian press announcement.
These advances will require extensive basic research to understand COVID-19 biochemistry, molecular biology, immunology, cell biology, and the pharmacology of candidate drugs.
Unfortunately, and due to budget cuts that enrich the 1%, roughly 90% of scientifically sound NIH grants to investigate these problems have remained unfunded year after year, and elimination of graduate training grants has eroded the pool of young talent needed to sustain scientific progress.
17
This is really disheartening. Our province of B.C. had conducted more tests than the whole of the United States. I was just reading that Iran too is promising it’s citizens a million tests.
13
It's normal now for everyone to LIE. Trump made it part of our culture and system.
16
Hey, FDA, CDC, whole Trump Administration: Stop lying to us about how well-prepared we are for coronavirus testing and treatment throughout the country. Can you act professional about anything?
22
@Ken
Everyone there now works for the Trump, Inc. marketing team.
4
I have zero confidence in the FDA. What do they even do? They don't regulate anything of importance, drugs are outlandishly expensive and their spokespeople and director say untrue things all the time.
Maybe the NYT should write an article about what the FDA actually does. Surely I must be ignorant (right?).
4
@Luke I hope that is rhetorical Luke. I was an FDA reviewer, and you probably can't expect to understand if you categorically are blasting an entire agency. Dr. Hahn is new to the agency, he hasn't been involved in a roll out of a high complexity reverse transcriptase q-polymerase chain reaction test before from the sister agency CDC. There are strict laws regarding emergency use authorization. One thing that you'd understand is if the tests available were all over the place in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, physicians wouldn't be able to use the results from one lab to the next, and public health agencies wouldn't be able to pool data. This is not the same kind of test as you get when you go to the average clinic. It isn't as simple as measuring a chemical or an antibody, which to be fair to all clinical labs, and personnel, they have to do it right and be trained, and have real knowledge. FDA doesn't determine that about the labs, it has jurisdiction over the sale of the test and claims. It is an extremely sensitive test attempting to detect the nucleic acid in the virus in human samples, and operators of the test need to use very clean facilities and impeccable technique in order not to contaminate new samples/tests being performed in the facility.
I am certain that CDC didn't want to have a problem with one of the reagents when this was rolled out. Also, consider the speed that this virus has shot around the earth and what little was known even 6 to 8 weeks ago.
6
@Luke
Before the GOP put profits for corporations above all else, the FDA kept us safe from untested drugs, useless medical devices and snake oil. (The FDA has never had authority to regulate drug prices, thanks to Republicans bloc-voting against it.)
But then all those things became an "undue burden on business" and/or "waste and fraud" and an impediment to the wonders of smaller government. Now I *wonder* why anyone ever believed any of this?
4
@John Bishop even with false positives you get from seriological tests based on IgM and IgG, they can be used as an initial screen, and are available now. The PCR tests you mention are the definitive indicator, but that’s the bottleneck. So get fps, or don’t test as many? That’s what the epidemiologists can tell you.
1
Heck of a Job, Donnie. #TrumpFlu
17
This is what happens when you have pathological liars in the White House. What a tragedy for America.
14
You mean the Trump administration....lied?
7
@Natalie shocking, isn't it???
3
I'm thinking that Mexico is regretting that they didn't pay for The Wall. It'd come in handy now to keep Yanquis from easily fleeing into Mexico.
15
I’m fairly certain I have a mild case. I developed a sore throat, fever, and cough upon returning home from a business trip in Asia. I transited through South Korea in both directions. Once I spiked a fever I called my doctor. I was told that I don’t meet the criteria for testing because I didn’t leave airport in South Korea and I don’t require hospitalization. If I had had the exact same symptoms as I boarded the plane in South Korea, I wouldn’t have been allowed to board and would have been tested immediately. I’m self quarantining but was told I didn’t have to - it’s mind boggling. There was also zero screening at SeaTac when I arrived on Saturday. Flights from South Korea and Japan went through customs mixed in with passengers from all other destinations. What exactly is the CDC actually doing?
147
@KM301 Thank you for self-quarantining! Good luck!
26
@KM301 You are doing the one thing that can actually stop this epidemic, self quarantining.
19
I guess you've already looked at this?
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/steps-when-sick.html
6
With such limited testing capabilities, there is absolutely no way of telling what the spread through the population really is.
One way currently to get a rough estimate is to look at the people who have recently returned back to China from countries with circulating coronovirus as a random sample. The accompanying article states that 13 of them tested positive for the virus. Assuming all of them were tested, one would use that number and divide it by the total number of Chinese who have returned. Assuming that they were randomly exposed or not to the virus in the general population, that would provide a rough estimate of what fraction of the population has already been infected AND is contagious at the time.
I suspect we will find that the virus has already spread beyond control BUT that the vast majority of cases are mild or asymptomatic.
The scary number of 2% mortality is caused by confirmation bias and biased sampling.
Mortality overall will be FAR lower.
Nonetheless, every case is one case too many, so get on with approving a vaccine, FDA! Waiting until next year is not an option, certainly not with the panic this is causing now.
1
@Captain Nemo
The problem is that having a vaccine immediately is not scientifically possible. Sorry, but science will always Trump marketing.
4
"Trump only cares about himself." That is a simple statement, which is repeated ad naseum, but it carries a lot more significance than most people attribute to it. His narcissism is profoundly beyond common understanding. Anything (and I do mean anything) that threatens the eggshell fragility of his self image is devasting for him. He must do whatever is required to protect his self image. Any criticism of him requires an agressive response even if that response is based on outrageous lies. His agression comes in many forms, but mostly in deception, even if that deception is without any foundation and threatens the lives of others. Those lives truly and absolutely do not matter to him because other people are dispensable and simply a tool for his sick need for self-fulfilment. In the end, if he can protect himself from harm and maintain his "self" against all others, the lives he harms do not matter to him. It is clear, beyond a doubt, that he has promulgated, directed and sustained the lie that the U.S. could produce one million tests by the end of the week. This lie will hurt thousands of people, many who will die because of the delay in the appropriate medical intervention. Yet, he views this as a good result because it buys him more time to fabricate other deceptions that will in turn enable him to fabricate still more deceptions that will buy him more time. He does not care that all of this has destructive consequences.
15
@pajarosinalas Let's just stop talking about Donald Trump-it's irrelevant to the situation we are facing now! Who is there in the CDC or FDA or HH that has the ability to find out/understand/and communicate what is happening. We need first person knowledge/advice. Just hoping that person would not be summarily 'fired'. Where is Deborah Birx? Can she speak to the public?
@pat smith Sorry, but Trump is directing the response to the coronaviurs. He dictates who can and who cannot speak. Those at the CDC, FDA and other agencies are not allowed to speak because Trump has said they cannot speak. Only Pence is allowed to speak or designate who is allowed to speak on his behalf. Trump is very relevant.
5
Regarding testing -I actually believed the government when they stated there would be a million tests by the end of the week. I mean, why lie about that?
Then Covid-19 testing data disappeared from the CDC website. Then I read this NYT article. Then I remembered we are dealing with the Trump administration. Of course they are going to lie, or at best make unrealistic statements -their usual thinking that simply making a statement will magically make it true.
So why should I have ever believed anything that this administration says? They’ve proved themselves false over and over again.
15
As far as I can tell, fewer people have been tested for coronavirus in America than in any other country at risk.
Are we actually still a first-world nation? Because Cambodia has tested far more people than we have.
16
I listened to this press conference yesterday on C-Span and there was a prerecorded session just prior with the former director (until last year) of the FDA. The net of it
-- Hindsight is 20/20 but the delay was primarily because developing a test kit requires you to actually have the pathogen and there could be more virus spread if you build the kit wrong or test incorrectly than would otherwise spread
-- No one would have done anything differently test kits or no test kits (just as no one would do anything different if this is called a pandemic or an epidemic). In particular, the first case in the country showed up in that Seattle suburb where the deaths occurred on January 20. The local health officials have been all over this thing in multiple ways since then https://crosscut.com/2020/02/how-coronavirus-has-tested-seattles-infectious-disease-response
Then the comments here go a step further and seem to simply make up stuff that was not only never discussed at the press conference but that have never been discussed anywhere that I can see ($3000 a test? Only 400 tests have been run in total? Etc.)
@Dennis Byron
How is it possible that America was unable to produce a test before the Seattle case appeared?
China has had one since early January.
2
CNN (I think) reported that a Florida man was charged about $3,300 for his test. He owes $1,400 after insurance.
2
@J Anders The CDC did produce one in January. But it did not work right
This is the scariest thing yet on covid-9. Trump officials are deceiving the public about the extent of testing - meaning it will be impossible to isolate those infected to check the spread of this disease but, not to worry, it will make the it look like the U.S. has low rates of infection - at least til Grandma or Grandpa or the guy down the street dies from it. It will be a little hard to sweep that under the rug.
10
Easily fixed. Buy the tests from China.
3
More lies from our Republican government. The only way there will be real action is if a prominent member of the GOP dies of the virus. Because Republicans never do anything about anything until it happens to THEM.
November 3, 3030: NO REPUBLICANS. NONE. NOT ONE.
10
Did they ask the Chinese or the South Koreans how they were doing the tests? Or are they trying to reinvent the wheel?
Looks to me like the CDC and the FDA were caught flat-footed, whistling past the graveyard. Humans never learn anything.
10
Humans DO learn—else homo sapiens would have died out millenia ago.
Rather—GOP and Trump supporters do seem incapable of accepting, ie , learning that virtually anything that Trump, Pence, AG Barr, and so on has to be assumed to be a lie until truly proven to be otherwise. Many lives in the US may ride on what the GOP enablers finally decide to do.
3
This is unacceptable. S Korea and Italy have been testing hundreds of thousands of their citizens. Totally unacceptable. This falls on Trump and his utterly incompetent administration. They have had months to prepare for this.
100
@Raydeohed He has hollowed out the Executive Branch. That and politicized the rest of it. Right now his administration is in a big push to eliminate career professionals throughout the government who criticize or have criticized him. He thinks he knows everything and doesn't need anyone advising him.
We all end up paying the price. Whether it is in loss of democracy or something more personal.
3
Even the first step in uncovering the unknown unknowns of the coronavirus - widespread testing - is being politicized into the usual rhetoric, “how great we are, how grateful to our dear president”. That’s the first clue to any untruth, alternative facts spreading as fast as the virus itself.
Beyond that is the wreckage of past attempts to provide universal healthcare insurance. Alex Azar has already stated that HHS cannot control the patient cost of any expected vaccine (translation: expect aggressive gouging from the pharma companies). Not to mention the cost of quarantine or hospitalization.
Obamacare has been largely dismantled by Trump and many red states decided not to expand Medicare. So expect great reluctance on the part of the lower and middle class people to self-report and check themselves into care facilities. Instead they’ll just hope to recover on their own. Who wouldn’t wish to avoid the crippling bills? Needless to say this would only exacerbate the problem.
Deafening silence from Trump’s team on how patients are supposed to pay for coronavirus treatment.
14
@domplein2 not only the treatment, but as has been mentioned previously by NYT and others, since the US does not offer nationalized health care, and since most low wage workers - service industry in particular - cannot afford to take time off from work, it means people will either infect guests at restaurants and hotels/resorts/theme parks, and/or they will become so ill as to not make it to work, then lose their job, and later on their housing...sadly, I don't ever see any news media do any follow up on what happens to these people. How many lose their jobs and/or their housing? In a couple of months it will all blow over and the media will salivate over the presidential election and trump's latest tweet.
3
Almost makes you think that maybe somebody in the federal government doesn't WANT to know how many coronavirus cases we have in the U.S.?
20
Is some of the concern about transmission of coronavirus coming from those who refuse vaccinations for their children and for themselves?
1
CDC professionals cannot say anything to the public unless it is approved by that renowned virologist Mike Pence. It isn't the professionals that are corrupt, it is our political leaders.
19
President Nero
10
Telling that Trump holds a meeting and opens it up to the press to talk about vaccines, but says nary a word about the testing kit debacle. Nor will Pence bring it up unless forced, and even then, he intentionally makes it sound rosy. There is a lot more to the testing kit snafu that has yet to be revealed.
11
So Pence is as big a liar as is Trump.... You elect a con man, you get a con...
9
@Paul Trump has set Pence up to fail and they he will replace him with Niki Haley.
1
@Jacquie - Possibly. Haley is certainly a proven liar. She will fit right in.
1
Wait...Trump and his immediate staff lied? Lied most egregiously?
Well, dog my cats. Have to say, though, it does concern me a tad bit that these guys seem to think that if you say it, it’s real.
8
How can this government expect anyone to believe what they say when their mortality rate for truth is orders of magnitude higher than that of the virus itself?
8
This weasel wording about test capacity is the kind of thing Trump does in his Tweets. It's what he did selling condos in New York. Now he and his administration are playing games with our lives to make him look good. He is dangerous and must be removed.
14
I was in northern California last week. Healthcare workers I talked to said they already had several more confirmed cases than the one reported in Solano County.
However, their facilities had been told by the federal goverment that they COULD NOT report these directly to the media - all communication had to go through the federal Health and Human Services Department. I figured at the time that the feds would hold off reporting until after the stock market closed on Friday. Which is exactly what happened.
Nor do I have any confidence whatsoever that this administration is reporting all of the cases. Trump appears to be treating this as a marketing issue where he's more concerned about tarnish on his "brand" than the health of the American people. Which is par for the course.
26
@J Anders
We should follow carefully local death statistics and obituaries from this point on and compare them with rates from this time last year. In the absence of adequate testing, those might be better markers of the true impact of this virus.
5
As of yesterday there had been 500 tests done. We have 100 people with confirmed cases. Meaning 20% tested have contracted it. What they will find out when they start testing more is that it is already here and spread fairly widely. Tests themselves will do nothing but confirm the extent to which it has already spread. I would suspect that there are far more infected and likely some people who have had it, got better, and will never be tested.
Basically, we missed it, and there is likely nothing to be done but ride it out.
It's not like our government was set up to do anything anyway. We like small government. Government is the problem, not the solution. Is that not correct republicans and Reagan Democrats? Government is the problem.
26
Republicans are gaslighting the American people, it should be obvious by now. You can't believe a word coming out of this administration or from Republicans in Congress.
86
But @Jacquie, Trump put the medical scholar and renowned epidemiologist Mike Pence in charge! Doesn't that make clear his commitment to transparency and effective leadership?
(Remember when he put his son-in-law in charge of the opioid epidemic and Middle-East Peace? Good times....)
10
@Jacquie More evidence of gaslighting as military tries to muzzle everyone so as not to make Trump mad according to the NY Times.
"Defense Secretary Mark Esper asked overseas military commanders to not to make any coronavirus-related decisions that could surprise the White House or contradict President Trump’s statements on the illness, The New York Times reported."
11
@Josh Trump put Pence in charge to watch him fail and then replace him with Niki Haley for his re-election.
3
why wasn't this happening 3 months ago?
25
@fme Silly you. This wasn't happening because the trump administration was "tremendously effective" at preventing the spread of the virus to the U.S. Why, everybody says so. They've done, per trump, a "tremendous job"; therefore, no need to bother testing for something that would never be here.
All you trump followers who whine about poor POTUS being picked on, do you remember during the Ebola scare? During that period, trump sent out about 100 tweets, including one that asserted that Obama was doing so poorly that he should resign. trump richly deserves his payback.
Disgusting, ain't it?
As an aside, have y'all noticed that trump's language/thinking abilities are so limited that everything must either be "the best", "tremendous", etc., or "the worst". He knows no shades of gray.
5
Because three months ago only a few people in Wuhan were aware of the possible existence of a new virus.
1
@Susan Warren people began getting sick in China at the beginning of December. The Chinese government rapidly developed a test and has tested hundreds of people since then.
Our government still can't do that. Germany can.
This is completely unacceptable.
Is it because our pharmaceutical industry has outsourced most production to China and left us vulnerable to a pandemic?
If that's not the reason , what is going on?
Lies and misinformation from our government. During a deadly pandemic. This will cause many unnecessary deaths. These deaths are the fault of a complicit criminal conspiracy by the GOP senate to keep power no matter the cost to the citizens of the USA.
30
Great, in the meanwhile, the virus will continue to spread and we will have a massive outbreak on our hands.
Such incompetence by this administration on every level.
26
A headline we are sure to see: TRUMP TELLS CDC USE EMERGENCY FUNDS TO PROVE HUNTER BIDEN CREATED VIRUS
30
Why is it that Korea can test with outstanding efficiency but the US blunders along with epic incompetence? For a so-called First World country, America looks very second-rate. How utterly pathetic.
56
@FilmMD Don't fool yourself. We have become the Brazil of N America. Where a few live very well and the rest of us? Good luck.
9
@FilmMD Agree whole heartedly. If we could test as SK has done we would see that the virus is much more wide spread.
2
A George W Bush reminder: 'Bronwie, you're doing a heck of a job'.
Change the names of the people involved and what remains are the same fools reincarnated.
19
“Everyone knows that all those who say they are not ready to perform as promised by our beloved president are in reality part of an international conspiracy of democrats, globalists, socialists and liberal news media to make him look bad and to undermine his administration.”
7
Aw-shucks. Our VP lied.
19
I'm a physician, and the only information that i get is from the nyt and cable news.
No info from florida dept of health, cms or local health officials.
57
Lies, lies and more lies. Hallmark of this administration. Please vote!!
26
If you need a test go to Iran. South Korea or China who have superior medical systems
14
Long story short with all of these breathless articles concerning the novel coronavirus: We Americans are on our own.
We are on our own against an incompetent President whose administration has slashed funding for disease response and emergency response management.
We are on our own in workplaces that offer little to no sick leave time.
We are on our own within a for-profit healthcare system that only few can access if they have insurance at all.
We are on our own.
46
That’s right. I read somewhere recently that the wealthy in the US enjoy socialism (low taxes, etc) and the rest of us are rugged individualists. We’re on our own. Vote the irresponsible, corrupt Republicans out this November.
6
"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."
Republican administrations, Making Incompetence Great Again.
16
Cutting scientists and expert clinicians from critical federal health agencies, as the Trumpists have done, is bad enough.
Add to that putting Pence in charge of COVID19 and muzzling the CDC: and it is folly indeed to believe reassuring statements from the White House.
After all, what is the ratio of lies to truth in Trump pronouncements—maybe 17000 to 1?
124
@Kathy
are you using MSNBC, vox or slate as your news source. Even a nytimes reader would know that the CDC scientist/expert staff bungled testing. The CDC is now being sidelined and more testing is being managed far better. My guess Trump or Pence were involved in sidelining the incompetent CDC
@sh
Exactly who do you believe is performing this "better" testing? There are no labs certified to run tests at this point other than public health clinics (aka: government).
8
@sh the CDC was doing something, what is Trump doing besides standing in their way and appointing incompetent boobs to oversee them?
1
January 7th was when the WHO discovered that the outbreak in China was a new novel virus. It is approaching 2-months after the discovery and the United States still can only test limited number of people. Just admit we dropped the ball and fix it.
The public needs honest and reliable information. The politicizing the information is not helpful. Stop providing false claims like a million tests by week end and a vaccine is within 3 or 4 months. Nor is it helpful to have these staged meeting with pharmaceutical executives, visits to the NIH and CDC. Its time for this Administration to allow the health professionals like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx take the lead on communications.
35
@Democracyforall
Agreed. CDC could contact thousands of federal,state and local health care people and call back many of its original emergency responders in one day. And from that produce a coordinated national response for us citizens who are currently in the dark.
Hear that Pence?
1
Times readers might find it helpful to read an article about the positive impact of the SARS epidemic on infectious disease research and preparedness in Canada. It’s from the Canadian Press and appears in a number of Canadian newspaper websites including the Toronto Star. The Times coverage has been superb but small supporting articles like this one are encouraging and we all need that from time to time.
Wash your hands and be safe.
9
@Timothy The Canadians did not beat SARS with testing, antivirals or vaccines. They beat it by actually telling sick people to stay home and not spread their illness. This won't work in the US because no one can afford to take a day off, and if they work they have to send sick kids to school and day care.
5
Logical chickens are coming home to roost. Most of us knew that Trump's snake oil was eventually going to hit a situation it couldn't cover up.
Trump bullied the Fed into cutting interest rates repeatedly to pump up the stock market for his reelection and to cover the costs of his tariffs.
Now that we need those rate cuts for what they're intended to do (stave off a recession), we're out of ammo. And with the $1 trillion a year deficit he caused with his giant Rich, Inc. tax cut, we're also bankrupt.
Who would have thought a guy who's been to bankruptcy court 6 times already would have done it again? Well, frankly, most of us.
42
All this looks like our Chernobil moment.
The government not being able to provide concise information and approach to this looming disaster. The government trying to censor information and downplay the scale and potential damages from this virus reminds me of the way the Politburo handled crises in the USSR. If we do not test enough people then there will be very few sick people with the COVID 19 because many will not know if they are infected or not.
Hide your head in the sand and you would not hear and see nothing.
I was dumbfound when I watched the president talk to the big pharma execs yesterday. I don't expect the president to know everything, but he sounded like a grandpa on AM radio.The execs did not help much as the seem afraid to confront him with facts and the true time line to produce a working vaccine. The execs need to show some backbone, not to be hiding and mumbling. They enjoy the tax breaks. Now is the moment to earn them!
18
@ELB
The big pharma boys have played the US gov't just like this during the 1970's original Swine Flu crisis -which died out thankfully. Pharma wanted total legal immunity, sort of free insurance, should their manufactured vaccine have had problems. These guys don't need no backbone; they refused to help American citizens then, they are threatening us again.
If I get sick getting tested for it will be the least of my concern. Being fodder for data sets is less important to me than recovery.
1
@John Doe
We cannot fight a pandemic unless we have accurate data.
2
@John Doe If 'you get sick' we all want to know what you have - so you can be treated properly-and so your family, co-workers, those around you, will know how to treat themselves.
3
@John Doe
Getting tested would help with knowing if have regular flu and tamiflu or other antiviral might help. Also if you have the COVID 19 virus everyone else benefits including those close to you, if go into isolation. Rugged individualism is not helpful in an epidemic.
1
Who would trust anything the federal government says at this point? Trump is doing his best to destroy the credibility of our institutions and his followers simply follow.
22
@dyeus Trump and his WH administration- is not the federal government. The FDA and CDC have to be worthy of our trust. No?
So we have government agencies lying. Trump lies of course. But so does Pence and so do FDA and CDC folks. What happened to the firewall of public servant professionalism that was supposed to protect us from Trump's lies?
8
A fish rots from the head...
This administration made cuts, not based on science but rather on their demented and incorrect desire for "smaller government" We all desire efficient government, but cuts have to be data-based.
I pity the civil servants like Fauci that have to clean up this mess and I hope that innocent people don't die as a result, although I fear that this has already occurred.
23
An epidemiological disaster is unfolding. The lies and incompetence of our government, specifically with respect to early testing, will eventually be shown to have cost the lives of many Americans.
This may be the thing that finally breaks Trump's spell. Lies, bluster, and tough talk are good sport when the target is the hated "libs", or brown-skinned "invaders"; I doubt it will work so well as a fast-spreading virus makes people fear for themselves and their families.
15
A looming global pandemic. A presidential administration marked by incompetence and mendacity. Government websites deleting information unfavorable to them.
This is not reassuring.
21
The last thing we need are statements between hopeful lies and fake facts.
3
The Trump administration's incompetence will kill people. How are we supposed to know the extent of the virus without the test? And to make false claims of "one million" test kits by the end of the week! We're sleepwalking through this, and we're not being given good information about what to do. There are a lot of us taking care of seniors and others with health conditions who seem to be the most vulnerable. So how are we supposed to know when cut off contact with the outside world and shelter in place? I fear that we are not going to get good information until too much damage has been done.
89
@K.Kong Did you watch Pence's "news" conference yesterday? "Scientists" were busy kissing Trump's behind and congratulating themselves. The fact that they lied about the 1 million tests will hurt their credibility with the 10 of us that watched. FOX is busy attacking Cuba and the Dems trying to destroy Trump. Rest of the World knows the Coronavirus is a huge problem. Huge.
18
@Ray Sipe It was like watching a bunch of boardroom CEOs pat each other on the back about how much money they will make. What a love fest. Revolting!
6
@K.Kong Maybe this goes along with cutting back health care and Social Security (I know, I simplified that). Basically, culling the population...
1
We will know testing has finally increased when there is a sudden surge in coronavirus cases in the U.S., causing panic. Of course, those cases will have been there for weeks, going untested and undetected.
14
All this testing is probably going to show that this Coronavirus strain has been around prior to the recent outbreak in China. With the high percentage of smokers among Chinese men, the large number of co-occurring COVID-19 infections attracted enough attention for medical personnel to test to see whether this was a new virus. Now that testing is being done around the world on literally millions of people, it's likely going to show that the strain has been present for perhaps several years and the outward symptoms of COVID-19 have been confused with other similar illnesses.
@Roget T
That is completely inaccurate and frankly irresponsible.
Geneticists are perfectly capable of time-stamping the rise of these new strains. A virus very similar was found in bats in China over the last couple of years. Which is why epidemiologists have been so worried about wildlife food markets.
Some of the most advanced genetic testing labs on the planet are now in China. NOT ONE of them found this virus until late December, when poor Dr. Li Wenliang tried to sound the alarm.
Face it - it happened AFTER Trump took office, as much as you'd like to think otherwise. And yet we've spent two and a half years slashing every safety net we had. Elections do have consequences - good luck to all.
36
@Roget T Well then how do you account for the high death rate in Italy? I do not think they have the same level of smoking as China does--They also have a fairly robust healthcare system. Korea has been mass testing its population and there numbers seem to be more accurate (at least in my non-medical mind).
There simply is no way of knowing how deadly this is right now and the fact that 4 Americans in the same nursing home have died in the past 2 days should be troubling. Especially for anyone who is older. We all should prepare as best we can but continue to live your lives as well
3
15 million Americans across the country have been infected by this virus and it has killed more than 8,200 people so far— the flu. By contrast, 110 people are infected by the Coronavirus and 2 people have died. Almost 30 of the people that have been diagnosed with the virus were repatriated from overseas and are in quarantine. The panic about the Coronavirus is disproportional to actual threat that it poses. The federal government is in full gear and the most likely scenario is that the virus epidemic will wane and ultimately end by late spring, and, like so many other overhyped news events, soon fade from our national conversation. Fear and panic serve no good end and are a cowardly response to a problem that requires cooler heads and basic common sense.
@Raul Campos
You do realize that the FIRST case of this virus was only found 8 weeks ago?
Since then, 90,000 people have become infected and more than 3,000 have died. Just because it took a while (well, a few weeks) to cross the pond doesn't mean everyone worrying about it is irrational. And the fact that our government is claiming to be in "full gear" while the truth is it's been caught completely flat-footed isn't exactly reassuring, either.
12
@Raul Campos Not sure where you are obtaining the statistics you cite, but let's just say for a moment they are correct. 8,200 fatalities out of 15,000,000 flu cases equals a mortality rate of about 0.06% for the flu.
2 fatalities out of 110 cases equals a mortality rate of about 1.8% for COVID-19 - that's 30 times higher than for the flu.
Sounds to me like we should proceed with caution regarding COVID-19, particularly as we currently lack adequate testing capability, currently lack complete understanding of its transmission mechanisms, and, until probably a year from now, haven't any kind of vaccine against it.
13
...but not telling the truth, it would seem. Also no need to stop throwing words like, “hoax,” around at rallies and then clumsily trying to scrub out what you said, eh?
What calms me down is quiet competence from people who’re able to explain, to discuss, without shouting about how great they are (and how picked-on they are) every thirty seconds.
Then, I like ‘em to actually go do what they told me they’re do.
Trump’s behavior, and that of his minions, doesn’t settle me down much at all.
3
It is just as urgent to identify people with mild to moderate symptoms as it is to identify critical cases, since an effective health care force can thereby be recruited from those who have recovered successfully. Otherwise it will be far more challenging to care for people.
6
@Susan No one knows how long immunity after an infection extends - it could be as little as 7 days.
In construction, assuming this is Pres. Trump's expertise, you hire supplement people as you need them for the job - construction workers, architects, etc. He misses that responding to an epidemic isn't like putting up another Trump tower. The experts now have other positions they aren't readily going to leave, and much process and effort is necessary before this type of event.
Thinking that private industry will create millions of testing kits and they'll submit to QA afterwards shows the belief that private industry can do everything better and faster, when in this area, clearly they can't. And not having experienced, governmental experts working shows every day.
9
From this article it appears that the government is relying on state and local public health labs to process the tests. If so, that's madness. Most medical testing is carried out by the enormous network of commercial medical labs. Why not draft them into this effort? PLEASE.
5
I just walked into my clinic and said "Where's the covid-19 rapid testing kit?"
Gave my colleagues a good chuckle.
The symptoms are the same as the common flu, not sure how we are going to reassure our patients.
Good luck to everyone in America, where our healthcare system is a business. Especially good luck to older folks with medical conditions.
59
@PM More and more, I believe this is simply culling the less healthy in the population.
This administration doesn’t want to test too many Americans, knowing too well that the American healthcare system is totally unfit and unprepared to confront this medical emergency.
Thousands of test kits were sent to the states by the CDC with a defective reagent , making their value zero.
The German test kit being used worldwide hasn’t even be considered or used , losing to this infection precious weeks .
The millions on uninsured Americans will stay away from clinics , because they can’t afford the cost , as well as the working poor , who when sick , can’t afford to lose a day of pay .
As a result of all of the above this infection might have catastrophic consequences.
46
Without test kits the nation and administration is flying blind. And with this kind of misinformation from Trump and Pence its beginning to look like that plane that had the pilot who locked himself in the cockpit and headed for the mountains. Trouble is, we are the passengers.
30
Not nearly enough kits and not enough labs to test them. Figures.
8
Germany has developed an effective test, as reported by NY Times in a related article. Why not buy large quantities from there, rather that do what seems to happening: forking over taxpayer money via lucrative government contracts to domestic pharmaceutical companies to develop new tests. Once again private profit is elevated over public health.
71
The WHO offered us their test for free, our CDC decided to work with for profit companies to develop a test that was such poor quality they had to recall all of them. Now if you want to get tested you also get the pleasure of paying a $3,500 bill with insurance.
South Korea has drive through testing.
We are an embarrassment. We should be ashamed of our government.
213
@John
I want to see an expose on the decision-making process that led us to reject the idea of using available test kits and choosing instead to develop our own.
21
@John
We need to impeach Trump again. This behavior is basically negligent manslaughter.
10
@Larry Sorry, the tests don't work but the shredders do...
4
If the six deaths had been in D.C. or Florida instead of Washington State, there would be free testings stations on every corner.
24
@Kristine
I said yesterday that Trump hasn't cared too much because all the cases were in blue states so far.
And then late yesterday came Florida. Watch him do a 180. Just watch.
9
IRAN = USA ... same propaganda. Now the fact that Pence and his crownies do press meetings without severe media enquires also speaks about how much lies Trump has been able to say without any kind of push back.
16
We continue to run around like chickens with our heads cut off, an apt analogy for the whole Trump administration.
China is capable of administering a million tests a day.
CT scans can be done to assess Covid-19 effectively.
The Three Stooges are running the CDC. NO trust there.
The FDA is making promises it can’t keep.
We probably have between 60,000 and 120,000 cases minimum in the US right now, but public health efforts are concentrated on keeping their heads buried in the sand, so we’ll never really no.
It may be time for the WHO to put a quarantine order out against the US: no-one can go in, no-one can leave our borders.
We have no leadership and no science guiding this country; we are no better off than those coping with bubonic plague during medieval times, except our Dark Age is accelerated with much faster transportation, and thus much more rapid transmission rates.
Bring out your dead!
15
When you put people without the proper experience in charge of the process, what else would you expect but bumbling and incompetence? That applies to the complete mismanagement of the Coronavirus, but to the government in general since 2016.
I would put more confidence in Elizabeth Warren to figure this out than the entire collective "judgment" of the political appointees of the trump administration. Hands down
17
Which administration tells more lies while denying scientific fact: Communist China or Trump USA? Please submit your answer at the voting booth.
20
Notice that the media continues to ignore the elephants in the room: the uncertainty of the "test" characteristics (sensitivity and specificity), and the underlying cause of the epidemic (torture and mass sale of wild animals for human consumption). The false positives from this unproven, rushed diagnostic test resulting from mass application on a low-risk population will generate far more panic and economic disruption than any events so far. The false negatives will similarly contribute to spread of disease and false reassurance. And of course, no price tag has been set. Pastor Pence, (evangelical Christian first, Republican second, and MAGA coronarvirus Czar third) is banking on prayer and an even more delusional belief that an interest rate cut fomenting even more borrowing will somehow stop this infection from spreading. This is not going to turn out well.
10
Perhaps we should divert money from money that was earlier diverted to build the wall?
I don't know about anyone else, but it seems to me that we should be more concerned about the virus that is already here than the migrants who might be coming here.
9
I have no financial ties to the NY Times except paying for a subscription. Please note that without reporters and real (not self appointed "reporters" and mystery opinion writers) journalists around the country, we would not have this information.
Support the NY Times, your local newspapers and others who keep the standards of good journalism. As is being demonstrated in this developing story, it can actually be about saving lives by having correct information for making private and public decisions.
29
This is shameful. The most racist thing we’ve seen is America watching what happened in Wuhan and assuming it would miraculously go differently for us. In fact, it looks like it will go much, much worse. Speed in testing and contact tracing is how China has managed to quell their outbreak; see this article:
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/2/21161067/coronavirus-covid19-china
I’m geographically right in the middle of numerous cases. Many people around mock and say, “it’s no worse than the flu!” so they are going about their kids’ sports, their trips to Disneyland. Meanwhile, the media silence after so many local deaths is eerie. But Facebook and Nextdoor are not. People begging to get tested bc they have symptoms and have nowhere to turn. Doctors say stay home, call when it gets worse. And then there are the pictures showing people transporting patients from the LifeCare Center with masks hanging loosely from their faces and nothing covering their arms. No wonder the quarantined firemen have symptoms.
So, I’m shutting myself in as much as I can. We are about 2 weeks away from thousands of cases uncovered given the timeline of other outbreaks— if we even manage to identify them except to hear of the 2% who die.
They really shouldn’t let folks like me from this area fly right now. Our country has failed my region. We are your guinea pigs. We are currently seeding this to the rest of America. I’m sorry for us all.
18
@New Recluse I feel so bad for you right now. I initially did not think this was that bad. Stay safe and please continue to check in on the comments page. People do care about you!!
2
@New Recluse
Keep voting Republican!
@Ignatz Farquad
Washington State is blue.
Canada needs to build a wall.
29
1 million tests by the end of the week. Once again, magical thinking replaces critical thinking.
27
More disingenuous “happy talk” from a slyly incompetent Administration that cannot, should not, be trusted on ANYTHING. Who in America is any longer surprised by its boundless capacity for deceit? Vote Trump and his entire dangerous cabal out of power in November. Literally, your life could depend upon it!
12
The inept of the administration is out to the open. They cut $3 billions CDC budget. 700 millions from NIH, 100 millions pandemic preparadness program and eliminated the pandemic position under NSC in 2018.
During the White House press conference last week, Trump stated that the current coronavirus infection is under control and no death despite he was briefed one patient contracted the illness without any known contact in Solano County by CDC. During Trump rally in South Carolina, he said, " Coronavirus infection is a hoax weaponized by the democrat ",
China covid-19 outbreak provides the world with 6 weeks of borrow time for preparadness. Now US has 6 deaths and over 100 confirmed cases which is totally underestimated the real incidence of the infection because of insufficient diagnostic kits. The current White House chain of command with politicians on the top sows and piles up with chaos which is the hall mark of this administration. A qualified health professional from CDC or NIH should be appointed to replace Mike Pence.
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Pence can lie with the best of them, such as Trump. He probably can outpray them, however.
But the nation needs scientific and clinical expertise.
Don’t expect Pence or Trump to
allow such experts to speak truth to either power or the American public. P and T will never permit that!!
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You know how you get people to get tested? Don't charge them for the test. No one is going to front 3,000 for this test.
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@C Yes, and testing negative today is no guarantee for testing negative tomorrow.
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My cousin lives in Spokane and told me today via email that she has been ill with a respiratory infection for over two-weeks. And she's not alone. Nearly everyone she knows has been ill or is ill with it and doctors were flummoxed because "it isn't quite the flu...and loves to linger." All these people are still plodding to work, possibly carrying this virus because they have to keep their jobs, even sick. And no one is offering to test her or anyone else yet.
More lies from this sad admin.
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When you gut and politicize the government agencies that are trained to deal with these emergencies you own the problem. Why were these agencies gutted and politicized. To pay for tax cuts and to support the fairy tale ideology of a Republican administration.
Trump, McConnell, Lindsay Graham et al, take a bow. You OWN this crisis.
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Me thinks they don't want us to get tested. If Korea can do thousands of tests and we can only perform a handful something is intentional.
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I realized long time ago that WHO is inefficient and possibly corrupted institution, now I am changing my mind.It seem that CDC and other federal agencies are not much better if not worst than WHO.WHO recommends SARS-CoV-2 test produced in Germany, which most of the World is using now.Other countries tests ten times more cases, than we are testing.What a shame!Even Turkey is testing more, not to mention Italy and South Korea! It is a gigantic blunder and somebody should take responsibility for it.On top of that arrogance of CDC is simply appalling, they don’t inform us about the reason for test shortages and they took away from their website statistics regarding number of perform tests.Please be angry and complain!
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The current administration does not want us to know that Covid-19 is a risk because we might panic and impact the economy, which is all Trump has to run on this fall. If they test and find more cases then...
This administration also believes that government should have a role in people’s lives and thus there’s no need for a national response to Covid-19.
But the truth will come home to roost irrespective of their heads in the sand.
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@Professor Lilloman
It is not the fault of the CDC. Or, rather, the CDC as it existed before Trump took office.
In 2018, he cut 80% of the CDC's infectious disease response budget. Then he fired the entire highly-qualified Infectious Disease Team. All in the name of cutting "waste and fraud".
Well, we're seeing now who is really "waste and fraud". And it's NOT the CDC.
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@J Anders That GOP tax cut for the wealthy resulted in slashing funding for the CDC and other vital programs. I hope voters remember this come November.
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this administration's attitude: Fire Departments are useless - my house isn't on fire - why should I fund it. Then when the fire breaks out to assume it will go out "like a miracle."
LEADERSHIP is the act of seeing what MIGHT happen and build consensus on how to make sure the impact is as small as possible.
don the con guts the CDC and NIH as waste or "deep state" or whatever riles up his rally. Then denies there's a problem for a few months. And now wants to be seen as a savior by lying about the administration response and what is possible in the next few months.
Folks, this is the EXACT same attitude toward global climate change. We'll get through COVID19 and lose tens of thousands of people unecessarily. but there will be hundreds of millions if not billions impacted by climate change, and don the con has thrown out all of the fire extinguishers.
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It is likely Covid-19 test development will continue to be slow. This is due to a variety of reasons from scientific to political. One of the biggest reasons may be because tRump and his chosen team are acting slowly because they don't want more testing which will mean more bad news and reflect badly on thei ability to manage this.
Better to hide everything, cut interest rates, and hope it will all work out
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@North Moer testing would lower the mortality rate of the disease because the numbers of infected, the denominator of the equation, would go up. But, I kind of doubt Trump can understand that much math.
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Trump doesn’t care that people might die on his watch. Certainly not if that scenario undermines his true interests, largely making money and trying to stay in power, regardless of whether his policies cause yet even more deaths. I hope Americans understand the trends and the math!
Until I can order a same-day delivery test kit at home via Amazon, there won't be enough test kits available. Seriously, these tests should be self-administered at home so as to protect health care workers and others at clinics and hospitals. Then sent back to, or picked up by, a local lab for processing if the at-home version can't provide an instant result. Just a reminder, it's 2020, for cryin' out loud!
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These tests should have been developed and produced back in January. Who is in charge here? Really in charge, not just nominally in charge? Anyone?
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Why doesn’t this article follow up on the comment in a previous Times article from yesterday? If the WHO uses an existing German test can’t the USA produce and distribute that now while the CDC and private companies test whatever they want? “But German researchers were devising their own test, which was quickly adopted by the World Health Organization for distribution around the world.
After the C.D.C.’s version turned out to be flawed, the agency continued to pursue it, despite the fact that another diagnostic test was already in wide use.
With F.D.A. approval, the agency could simply have embraced the test used by the W.H.O., Dr. Mina said. The government could do so even now.”
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@Jennifer
Berlin docs of the Charite ran into trouble this weekend, because they didn't get an ordered enzyme needed for the test. There is a replacement, but that combination hasn't been tested and approved so far.
The first patient also had been sent away with a wrong diagnose and later to be found infected with Corona. The Emergency room where he went in, is shut down now and the staff is quarantined at home.
Now there is a tent for those who suspect themselves of being infected, there are already 100 people queuing up. If you call your own doctor, he peobably will refuse any treatment and give you a number vor Corona Emergencies - which is blocked all the day.
So far there are just 5 official cases here, but some of them are possible multipliers. The latest infected victim is a doctor himself, working in a clinic in Neukölln, media is claiming, he didn't travel to any risky area before.
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A "test" for the coronavirus?
Let me guess: Two coughs--a cold. Three coughs--coronavirus.
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Stop crying over split milk. The CDC and all labs across the country are on it and have been doing everything they can do to prevent the spread regardless of the tests slow start. One must remember that the presumption is that coronavirus is everywhere and about 80% of cases will be mild and the other 20% may not be so mild but like will not result in death unless the people who have it are old and have a previously diagnosed underlying disease. We will be testing everyone we can as fast as we can. Also remember we will never be able to rest 300 million people.
@NYChap Agreed, but that's not what Dr. Hahn said. He said million tests produced by the end of this week.
It's Tuesday, by the way.
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@NYChap The government may not have adequately prepared to respond and is even now unwilling to directly address the challenges ahead, except perhaps in one area, the preparation of excuses for their failure to act in a timely manner seems well advanced. Glad to see you contributing to this important effort.
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@Mark - What challenges ahead is the government unwilling to directly address? My contribution, unlike your contribution whatever that is, is don't panic. There is little anyone can do except to take the precautions that are recommended to prevent oneself from catching or spreading coronavirus.
Take the money appropriated for the wall, the money that was so essential because of the “emergency” and “imminent threat” to the American people, and put it towards this real and mounting danger that snowballs every day. We need well stocked testing locations in every major city. We need assurances they are free and accurate. We need government grants to pay a stipend to those who taking time off work will result in lost wages and to pay hospitals who treat those without insurance. We need assurances that sick or quarantined people can not be fired or raided by ICE. We need masks for health care workers AND civilians. We need a mobilized federal heath program ready to deliver ventilators, quarantine units or staff on command and we need daily, honest briefings on the state of affairs that will keep the public safe and informed. We are only as healthy as our sickest person. The longer we wait, vacillate and spin the sicker the populations do the stock market will become. This is not a drill.
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"So far, more than 100 people in the United States have been sickened". This isn't remotely a sensible statement. The most that might be said is that 100 people have tested positive for the coronavirus. The key missing element is how many tests have been administered, and how many have been negative; also, the criteria for when a test is administered. If only 1,000 tests have been administered, 100 sickened could translate into hundreds of thousands "sickened".
Another missing element in news reports is the rate of false positives and false negatives.
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Coronavirus test kits not working, number of new kits falling short. Is this what we can expect from our federal government as COVID-19 spreads faster than it would if they were executing on plans better?
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“We still need to optimize and validate our tests because commercial vendors are held to a high standard,”
And what standard would that be???
If the test is positive, then the patient has the virus?
or if the test is negative, the patient does not have the virus?
Validation is important. Stop making it sound like this is an unnecessary standard, and we are only wasting time on bureaucracy.
I kept hearing spin from this administration because I understood 1) the assay needed time for validation and then verification, and 2) competent medical laboratory scientists must be available to handle high volumes.
This is not the time to sacrifice accuracy and promote diagnostic errors.
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"Does the United States really have the capacity to ramp up its efforts and produce one million coronavirus tests by the end of this week,"?
How could we know? My first question is about "Integrated DNA Technologies", who is, I presume the source of the first (tiny!) batch of failed kits that were sent out. We got 200 in CA, and, of course, they were useless ("bad component").
If this company had been following FDA GMP regulatory protocols, no bad product would have made it through the QA/QC process, so I have real concerns about the quality management of that company.
Second, what is IDT's manufacturing capacity? One does not just "ramp up" if there are quality issues.
These things aside (!), it appears we, as a country, have "fired" the wrong people, and made the wrong budget cuts (referring to the fraud's firing of the Pandemic Response team, and their chain of command). Yes, we can "ramp up", but it is not an instant turnaround.
Third, and unfortunately a little late here, we did not have the volume of test kits when we needed them most, at the beginning of this outbreak. Without being able to test ("screening" is, at best, only a "feel-good" process that can only catch those already sick, not those infected) ALL suspected of being infected, we cannot know the scope of infection, so we cannot hope to "contain" the spread.
Our administration is incompetent, and appears only focused on not offending the fraud in the WH. This is beyond unacceptable.
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@Slann manufacturing is farmed out to profit making corporations, instead of using the kits already available from WHO and other countries.. 'nuff said
@Slann GMP regulations are waived during an emergency use authorization in able to allow more people to produce products faster.
This is just what we don't need--more misinformation from Trump administration health-care administrators. Just more chaos, more uncertainty, and more panic. With the Covid-19 virus spreading rapidly the inability to test to confirm it only means that more people will be exposed. And it the government can't get its act together on test kits what does that say about hand sanitizers, N95 protective and disposable surgical masks, nitrile latex disposal gloves, disinfectant wipes, and zinc lozenges that are already in short supply, but are highly recommended for taking protective measures?
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@Paul Wortman The virus had been in washington state for weeks. Most likely this virus has been here for awhile and we only know it is here now because of what testing they have done. Symptoms present like a mild cold or the flu and people who just think they have a cold are just going to pound some DayQuill and that's it.
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My guess is Azar want to farm the kits out to private enterprises. The question is why did the CDC kits, from a world expert in disease control fail in this assay? Loss of staff? Bureaucracy? Administration interference? This is a RNA virus - analysis methods are established but require specialized equipment. Are they analyzing for proteins - sensitivity is lower than for RNA. The former may account for the delay if antibodies are in production. Mouth swabs May not contain enough material for analysis. The CDC is not incompetent- I see the hand of Pence and Azar - discredit the CDC to justify the cuts, hand billions to private companies. I expect people will be reluctant to be tested - more medical bills!
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The American people deserve the truth. Even if new test are fast tracked for approval and labs quickly adapt them, this process takes weeks or months at best. Claiming that by the end of the week there will be capacity to test a million people is magical thinking and unworthy of the federal government. The truth would be far more effective followed by succinct/effective advise on preventative measures. This is yet another example of amateurs assuming control of our government and it is dangerous.
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@Dennis W Developing testing is just the beginning. One of the other reasons China has been successful in stopping this outbreak is they realized that standard ventilators were not adequate to deal with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) that is common with severe Covid-19. They invested in Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) systems to oxygenate the blood of patients whose lung function was severely compromised by Covid-19. This technology is not widespread in the US and our government needs to support the purchase and adoption of this technology by health care facilities.
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Open it up to small labs willing to test and expand in their basement overnight. Forget about government approvals or control. There is more than one way to cook an egg and it doesn't have to be fancy. Make it cash only ($20 a pop) or free. Get it done. Dispatch mobile vans next to taco trucks and gas stations. Let's not get fancy about it. Let's get creative.
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Trumpcare 2020!
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Is this a banana republic?
Nobody can say at this advanced stage of the epidemic how many tests have actually been made and how many infection cases have been identified?
Even the 6 deaths need to be questioned as obviously people die in much higher numbers every day from respiratory problems and establishing the cause requires testing.
If the Trump administration thinks it can sail through this storm by simply not establishing the basic facts it is really more mental than I thought.
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All this winning!
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So Trump's administration is lying to us again.
This news is SO not a surprise.
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Competence? From the Trump Administration? LOL!
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Another charlatan like Trump, who says whatever is necessary to keep his status and power and ignore FACTS and SCIENCE.
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Why can’t these officials be informed and be honest? The Times can figure out the availability of the tests. It is malfeasance for the officials to fail to do so.
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What happened to MAGA? Because of Trump’s policies we are less nimble than Third Countries in dealing with this virus.
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Why hasn't the government set up free testing stations in every state? With our current health care system, many won't get tested because they are uninsured or under insured. Without free testing, testing without questions about your citizenship or ability to pay, the virus may run amok in the US. WHERE IS OUR SAFETY NET?
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@K Shields
If you haven’t noticed, Republicans don’t want you to have a safety net and have been doing everything they can to wreck it. That’s America.
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Safety net? My family is fine. Shouldn’t people pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
(Sarcasm)
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@K Shields
I dare say that many in America will also not get tested simply because they are not citizens and may be afraid of coming forward.
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