Page 2 - aruba-today-20201207

A2 UP FRONT
Monday 7 deceMber 2020
limited testing services and tions than others. ing forward?
materials, and with little Administration officials say In July, the Rockefeller
guidance or training on they are proud of the cur- Foundation called for mak-
how to best use the tests. rent state of testing. Last ing cheap tests widely
In April, President Donald month, Vice President Mike available to better identify
Trump declared governors Pence celebrated that people who are infected
were responsible for testing. 170 million tests have been and don't know it. That
Amid complaints about completed, and that an would involve developing
shortages and delays, the expanding array of tests and making cheap anti-
federal government began are available. gen tests, which provide
sourcing and shipping key But the focus should be less quick results but are less
testing supplies to states, on numbers and more on reliable than genetic tests.
beginning with swabs. action, said Dr. Ali Khan, Foundation officials hoped
In the latest phase, Trump dean of the University of the government would
officials are sending more Nebraska College of Public push companies to manu-
People drop their test kits into an intake receptacle at a CO- than 100 million rapid, Health. facture tests the same way
VID-19 testing site in the North Hollywood section of Los Angeles point-of-care tests to states. "It shouldn't be anybody it has pushed vaccine mak-
on Saturday, Dec. 5, 2020. The government said the who needs a test can get ers to mass produce experi-
Associated Press first shipments went out in a test," Khan said. "It should mental vaccines.
early October. be anybody who has a Some Harvard research-
Continued from Front first — and most enduring Such tests are considered positive test immediately ers believe that testing half
The president-elect has en- — stumbles in the federal key to slowing spread, but gets isolated" and the peo- the population each week
dorsed that strategy, called government's response to states have distributed ple they were in contact would be possible by mail-
for making testing free for the coronavirus epidemic them differently. For exam- with checked and placed ing those tests to millions of
all Americans, and said that hit the nation early this ple, Alaska is sending tests in quarantine. U.S. households.
government experts at the year. to oil drilling sites, Colora- He was echoed by Nunez- Participation would be vol-
Centers for Disease Control In February, the CDC dis- do to local public health Smith, the Biden coronavi- untary, and positive results
and Prevention and other tributed test kits to public agencies for testing home- rus adviser. would have to be con-
agencies should be em- health laboratories that less populations, and Missis- "Testing is only useful when firmed with genetic tests —
powered to coordinate the initially were faulty. U.S. of- sippi to veterans' homes. we can act on the test," the home tests are not con-
entire effort. ficials worked with compa- There's also no federal stan- said Nunez-Smith, a Yale sidered as sensitive as more
"The reality is we're not nies to expand testing, but dard for reporting test data. health equity researcher. established lab-based
testing enough today," Dr. shortages of chemicals, Some states report the Trump himself has voiced testing. Even so, it could
Marcella Nunez-Smith, co- materials and protective number of tests adminis- a lack of enthusiasm for dramatically expand the
chair of Biden's coronavirus equipment meant fewer tered, while others tally the comprehensive testing. In amount of infection moni-
advisory board, told The As- tests were available than number of people tested. a June tweet, the president toring going on across the
sociated Press this week. what experts said was nec- Some have counted types called testing a double- nation, its proponents say.
His transition team so far essary. of tests that others don't, edged sword that is good During an appearance on
has not gone into further Worse, some experts say, which can skew results be- to have but "makes us look NBC's "Meet the Press," Dr.
detail. states and cities competed cause some tests are better bad." And Dr. Scott Atlas — Anthony Fauci of the Na-
Testing was one of the against each other to buy at diagnosing active infec- a top pandemic adviser to tional Institutes of Health
Trump before he resigned said Americans should
Monday — argued against have easy tests they can
testing people who aren't do in their own homes.
experiencing symptoms. "We don't have that," he
But some regard such think- said. "We should have that."
ing as an attempt to spin Versions of such an ap-
a leadership failure into proach have been tried
something else. in some places, including
"The executive branch has Slovakia and Minnesota.
seen test results – case But some experts note
counts – as a report card there is little precedent for
on its performance," said screening tens of millions of
Carl Bergstrom, a University people with cheap, rapid
of Washington evolution- tests—which would gener-
ary biologist who studies ate a significant portion of
emerging infectious dis- false results. It's also unclear
eases. whether people who test
The nation may be weeks themselves at home will
away from coronavirus follow instructions to quar-
vaccines becoming avail- antine. Nearly all experts
able, but that won't erase agree that more data and
the need for testing, said coordination is needed.
the Rockefeller Founda- "Having every state do its
tion's Eileen O'Connor. own thing without guid-
"We're not going to get ev- ance from the federal level
erybody vaccinated right — from CDC in particular —
away. And we still don't I think has really hampered
know how long that immu- us," said Scott Becker, the
nity will last," she said. So chief executive of the As-
testing will still be needed sociation of Public Health
to monitor where the infec- Laboratories. "It is a federal
tion is active and to see if response as much as it is
infections are occurring in a state response, but it's a
vaccinated people. shared responsibility. We
What should be done mov- need to work together."q