03-27-2020, 10:52 AM
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/03/27/coronavirus-test-officials-botched-rollout-derailed-containment/5080781002/?fbclid=IwAR1uZRgoSnjxHq2H9LiwNQSCCEVeNLpmm1KmZASLjaNDwk_1s4jy00S1jgE
Much more at the link.
Quote:The coronavirus test that wasn’t: How federal health officials misled state scientists and derailed the best chance at containment
The coronavirus epidemic this week reached Beadle County, South Dakota. A single case tied to travel has exploded into 14 infections and counting, with no way to know how many were exposed while supply shortages forced the entire state to briefly suspend testing.
Confirmed cases in New York City, where hospitals have fallen into chaos as resources run thin, on Thursday surpassed Beadle’s entire population of 18,500. With too few tests for too many cases, doctors there already had been told it no longer made sense to test most ill patients.
From its biggest cities to its smallest towns, America’s chance to contain the coronavirus crisis came and went in the seven weeks since U.S. health officials botched the testing rollout and then misled scientists in state laboratories about this critical early failure. Federal regulators failed to recognize the spiraling disaster and were slow to relax the rules that prevented labs and major hospitals from advancing a backup.
Scientists around the country found themselves shackled as the disease spread.
“We were watching a tsunami and standing there frozen,” said Dr. Debra Wadford, director of the public viral disease laboratory in California, where some of the country's earliest patients were identified.
The nation’s public health pillars — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration — shirked their responsibility to protect Americans in an emergency like this new coronavirus, USA TODAY found in interviews with dozens of scientists, public health experts and community leaders, as well as email communications between laboratories and hospitals across the country.
The result was a cascading series of failures now costing lives.
CDC leaders not only bungled their role in developing the first coronavirus test permitted in the country, they also misrepresented the efficacy of early solutions to state health authorities.
Then, public and private lab directors felt rebuffed by the FDA when they first offered to help troubleshoot the problem by developing their own tests. The agency, through its emergency authority, had placed restrictions on labs that can apply in emergencies but not in normal circumstances.
In a statement to USA Today, FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo said validating outside tests is essential in a crisis when "false results can lead to significant adverse public health consequences."
A reliable, accessible test was key to averting today’s disaster. Countries such as South Korea had already shown how such diagnostics — developed and scaled up with the help of the private sector at the onset — could be used to identify people with early infections before they spread the virus widely.
In late February, the CDC's deputy director of infectious disease projected calm in a conference call with state laboratories. The labs were told they could now send samples to the CDC and receive results within 24 hours.
“That was a bald-faced lie,” said Wadford. At that point, she was waiting four to five days on test results for samples she had sent to the CDC.
“The most disappointing part was that they couldn’t just be frank and straight with us,” said Wadford, who took detailed notes of the conference call that she dictated to USA TODAY. “Tell us the situation. Don’t sugarcoat it and lie. But to mislead us is just not right.”
The following week, President Trump tweeted: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
Since then, the U.S. has gone from 51 confirmed cases to more than 85,000, from zero deaths to over 1,200, while the economic toll of shuttering wide swaths of the country has cost millions their jobs and pummeled the stock market.
Caccomo denied that the FDA was overly restrictive at the onset of the outbreak and then slow to adapt to the "unprecedented public health emergency.”
“We recognized the urgent need for even faster testing availability, so we quickly adapted our policies to help expedite patient testing,” Caccomo said.
The agency worked with outside labs as early as Jan. 22, she said, before opening up the emergency authorization process at the end of February.
"As the emergency evolved," Caccomo added, "FDA determined that the benefits of increased testing capacity outweighed the risks associated with use of additional tests."
The time lost in February was critical to containing the outbreak and helping hospitals prepare, experts say. With each delay, the virus spread undetected as people likely unaware of an infection attended conferences and weddings, frequented bars and restaurants and took long-planned cruise vacations.
America is now paying the price. More than half of the country’s population has been ordered to stay home to slow the spread. Doctors are rationing supplies. Like New York City, communities have limited testing because the outbreak has grown so large that hospitals must instead target the most vulnerable.
Much more at the link.
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.