03-19-2020, 10:39 AM
(03-19-2020, 10:31 AM)michaelsean Wrote: I'm just saying one benefit of testing. If I get sick, but not sick enough to go the hospital, I won't get tested. I get tested if I think I have a bacterial infection like strep because there is something they can do about it, but not anything else.
I get why people want it, but not testing for viral infections is actually relatively common in the hospital when the treatment is the same either way. My son was premature and with that RSV is kind of this cloud hanging over him at all times. RSV can cause bronchiolitis and pnemonia, however so can other viruses. He was hospitalized for both over the last 6 months and while in the hospital both time the doctors didn't run viral panels until I requested them for my own curiosity. The reason they didn't was because, RSV related Pnemonia/bronchiolitis or not, they were treating it the exact same way. My interest in RSV infections were for later understandings of his potential respiratory issues but that wasn't really a concern for the hospital (and I don't expect it to be). In the end both times that panel came back negative, but I learned a lot about how respiratory infections were handled and it makes me even more confused as to why we are using tests on people in the hospital other than for gather inaccurate infection/mortality numbers.