The Coronavirus Task Force announces that starting this week, Covid-19 testing labs will be operational in 10 states.
Each site is projected to do 2,000 to 4,000 tests a day. The priority for testing are the health care workers and the elderly and the chronically ill.
The press conference yesterday laid out the plan to catch up with screening.
What’s the Plan?
The strategy involves the parking lots of CVS, Target, Walmart, and Walgreens for drive-thru testing. Thousands of tests can be done by Labcorp and Quest a day. Results are then be sent to their doctors, local and state governments.
South Korea pioneered the drive-thru test technique and, so far, has tested 274 thousand. Drive-thru is safe, fast, and efficient.
States like California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Texas, and Washington have opened drive-thru testing today.
Thousands of Tests can cause a spike in Covid-19 Cases for many days.
The new tests can have a result in four hours. At that rate, if many will be positive, there could be a sudden increase in Covid-19 cases as they get reported.
A jump in the number of cases may appear that the epidemic is uncontrolled.
The reasonable explanation is that the sudden rise in the number of infected is from the discovery of cases that are already here in the US. It looks terrible, but in a way, it is good news.
What’s good about detecting infection among the health workers and the elderly and chronically ill?
1. Prevent the further spread of Covid-19
If a health worker has mild symptoms that may be allergies, testing can determine whether they can report for work or if he should stay at home. If not testing is done and they work, they risk infecting others, including patients. On the one hand, staying home unnecessarily will put a strain on their co-workers.
If they know they are positive, they can self-isolate at home and prevent the spread to family and friends.
2. Prevents Hospital Congestion by lowering the at-risk admissions
For the vulnerable group, testing will identify the infected, and they can be separated from the rest. That will reduce their chance of infection and developing severe complications. Severe cases of Covid-19 have a difficult and prolonged hospital course.
If many patients are admitted who need prolonged hospital stays, it will slow down the turnover of hospital beds or mechanical ventilators.
A full hospital will not be able to accommodate incoming patients requiring. This will lead to unavailable beds for other patients needing hospitalization and critical care.
Hospital congestion compromises the care for other patients, whether they are infected or not.
Emergency cases like strokes, heart attacks, and many others may not have the proper care.
3. Proper Protection Preserves the Staff Number
Identifying the infected patients alerts the health workers to wear the gowns, masks, and face shields to prevent themselves.
Properly shielded workers assure non-infection and sustained and adequate staffing. This epidemic will last for months; that is why it is critical to make sure that there are enough doctors and nurses.
Bottom line:
The plan to test more people for the Covid-19 brings new hope for the control of the rapidly spreading and deadly infection. South Korea and China have proven that it works
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