undefined | Better HN

0 pointsmakomk6y ago0 comments

The only country where this seems to have even vaguely worked is South Korea, and the US is already testing much more people for coronavirus than South Korea even in per-capita terms. Has been for a while. Now, the New York Times editorial board has been pushing the idea that you're behind South Korea because more of your tests are coming back positive - but the way they dropped that number is by using stricter social distancing measures to drop transmission rates, not increasing the number of tests. That doesn't seem to be happening in the US even with a full lockdown, and we don't really know why.

Basically, all of the US media reporting around testing has been terrible, misleading, partisan nonsense designed to create an imaginary testing gap that can be blamed on the current president to try and kick him out of office in November. Publications like the Times are quite open about why they're doing it. The UK isn't much better though.

0 pointsmakomk6y ago0 comments

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

lazyasciiart6y ago· 2 in thread

I don't care what the comparison to South Korea is, and I don't expect other countries to have already achieved this. I care whether testing is widely available enough that a person who finds out that they had dinner with someone last night who has coronavirus can go and get tested immediately, not wait until they are short of breath and feverish.

Perhaps you would like to read Dr Fauci talking about why we need more testing capacity before relaxing lockdown rules? https://time.com/5826161/anthony-fauci-covid-19-testing-capa...

Or Gottlieb, Trump's appointee for the FDA? https://www.vox.com/2020/4/14/21219021/scott-gottlieb-corona...

If you are dismissing "all of the US media reporting around testing" as terrible, misleading, partisan nonsense, then you are either looking for a particular opinion to be represented that isn't, or, more likely, you aren't reading all of it.

makomkOP6y ago

If no country has ever achieved this, what's even the evidence that it's actually possible? There are some pretty fundamental reasons to think it wouldn't work, not least of which are asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic and barely symptomatic spread, and the fairly impressive R0 of this particular disease. If the person you're having dinner with doesn't have symptoms and you have a slight sniffle, how do you even know to get tested?

Also, how the amount of coronavirus testing the US is doing stacks up to other countries isn't an "particular opinion" - it's a fact, and it's a fact that pretty much the entire US press seems to have managed to misinform everyone about, including the fact check columns.

lazyasciiart6y ago

Thats what contact tracing is. Your dinner companion finds out they are sick two days later, and everyone they were in contact with gets found and tested.

The amount of testing the US is doing is indeed a fact, and it's widely reported in US press.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse