Gov't virus testing will prioritize medical staff, elderly
The federal government's effort to rapidly expand testing for the coronavirus will primarily focus on screening healthcare workers and older people, Trump administration officials said Sunday.
Members of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force attemptedto flesh out their plan to screen a large number of Americans for the virus amid growing frustration about lack of access to tests and confusion about who should have them.
Priority for testing would head to medical professionals and older persons with viral symptoms, officials said, in order to avoid "paralyzing" the U.S. health system.
"It's important the tests are for sale to the people who are most in need and our health care workers and first responders that are helping and supporting them," Vice President Mike Pence told reporters at the White House.
The retooled plan came two days after President Donald Trump previewed a nationwide network of drive-thru testing sites at chains like WalMart and Target linked by a Google-designed website.
But Sunday's announcement focused mainly on traditional government efforts to deploy medical and emergency staff in U.S. communities.
Brett Giroir, a senior health administration official, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency and members of the U.S. public health service would coordinate with states to setup community testing centers. Each site would be capable to testing 2,000 to 4,000 people each day. He said the government would commence deploying Monday.
"You will see these sites rolling out progressively over the week," Giroir said. "This is simply not make believe, this is simply not fantasy." Trump tapped Giroir, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, to become testing 'czar' earlier this week, amid growing complaints about the slow U.S. response.
Broad-scale testing is a critical part of tracking and containing pandemics.
However the U.S. effort has been hobbled by some missteps, including flaws with the testing kits first written by the federal government and bureaucratic hurdles that organized testing by private laboratories.
Although federal agencies are accountable for tracking pandemics, Trump suggested in a Tweet that the onus is currently on those outside Washington,
"The average person Governors of States, and local officials, must step up their efforts on drive up testing and testing sights," in conjunction with the CDC, Trump tweeted Sunday night.
Because of the lack of nationwide testing, public health authorities have warned that the coronavirus is probable spreading undetected in parts of the U.S. A surge in COVID-19 cases could quickly overwhelm intensive care units at U.S. hospitals.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as for example fever and cough. For a few, especially older adults and persons with existing health problems, it could cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The worldwide outbreak has sickened a lot more than 156,000 persons and left a lot more than 5,800 dead. The death toll in america is more than 50, while infections neared 3,000 across 49 states and the District of Columbia.
The vast majority of folks recover. In line with the World Health Organization, persons with mild illness recover in about fourteen days, while people that have more severe illness may take three weeks to six weeks to recover.
Countries in Europe and Asia have been using drive-thru testing sites to perform mass screening for weeks. South Korea, for instance, reports testing about 15,000 persons per day.
Pence told reporters Sunday that 10 U.S. states will have drive-thru testing sites, including NY, Colorado, Texas and Delaware.
Pence said the administration is dealing with Google and "a great many other tech companies" to disseminate info on the coronavirus. He said an online site to help Americans screen themselves for symptoms and discover testing locations would be available this week. Nonetheless it wasn't clear if it would immediately have the features previously highlighted by Trump and his administration.
Verily, a health care subsidiary of Google, said earlier Sunday that its COVID-19 screening tool would launch online Monday in the SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA Bay area, allowing users to take an electronic survey to determine if they ought to be screened for the virus. The business described your time and effort as in its "early stages."
Parent company Google said within an online post Sunday that it could launch a website focused on COVID-19 "education, prevention, and local resources nationwide" late Monday.
Trump seized on the statement to criticize media reports that he previously overstated or exaggerated the business's involvement.
"I don't know where in fact the press got their fake news nonetheless they first got it from some place," Trump said in the White House press room, holding a printout of the Google tweets. He left the news conference prior to the task force discussed testing.
Since January, federal, state and municipality labs have tested less than 20,000 U.S. patients, according to federal figures. Currently, those labs are by using a manual process to develop patient samples in small batches of significantly less than 100 per day.
Those figures don't reflect testing by private labs, which are starting to crank up their capacity.
Since Friday, two companies - Roche and Thermo Fisher- received emergency regulatory authorization for "high-volume," automated tests for the virus.
The American Clinical Laboratory Association, which represents private labs, estimated the industry should be able to process 280,000 tests weekly by April.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells persons to seek testing if indeed they have certain symptoms of the flu-like illness caused by the coronavirus - fever, cough and trouble breathing - and if indeed they have traveled recently to a coronavirus outbreak area or have been in close connection with someone who's been infected.
Public health officials have cautioned that unnecessary testing for coronavirus could hamper medical workforce's response.
"Increased testing of folks with mild or no symptoms brings increased threat of infection when you wait to get tested, stresses health care which may be needed for individuals who are sicker, and is no guarantee that you will not test positive tomorrow," said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC, in an emailed statement.
