How can we open our economy when fewer than 2% of all Americans have even been tested?
There’s a disturbing notion going around right now. A lot of folks seem to think that because a few major COVID-19 hotspots are past their peak — or close to that point — we’re ready to open up the U.S. economy, get back to work, and get things back to normal.
The people saying this are obviously out-of-touch with reality.
Don’t get me wrong. I’d love things to go back to normal. Part of my income comes from selling the jewelry I make at art shows. I’ve already had four shows cancelled — Borrego Springs in California in March, Art Under the Elms in Idaho and Apple Blossom Days in Wenatchee in April, and the Guild B Art Show in Chelan in September. I’m on the calendar for Leavenworth’s Village Art in the Park for two weekends in May, including the exceedingly profitable Memorial Day Weekend, but I suspect they’ll be cancelled, too. And even my helicopter business took a hit: the big airport event in June where I do hundreds of rides with one or two other pilots was cancelled. So yes, this is hurting my bottom line a bit, although admittedly not as much as the folks who have lost their primary (or sole) source of income because of business closures. (My main business is agricultural flying and that’s still essential here.)
The United States has conducted more than 4 MILLION coronavirus tests thanks to the leadership of President @realDonaldTrump.
This is DOUBLE the numbers of any other country!
— Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) April 18, 2020
But let’s be real here. Despite the constant steam of misleading information coming out of the White House multiple times a week, the U.S. is far behind many other countries with its testing for COVID-19. Just the other, the new official liar press secretary claimed on Twitter that over 4 million Americans had been tested. There are two problems with this:
- It doesn’t jive with the numbers being reported on the far more trustworthy Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard, which is updated throughout the day every day for every country on earth. As the White House was claiming “over 4 million,” Johns Hopkins reported 3.7 million.
- The percentage tested — even if it were 4 million — is still less than 2% of the total U.S. population of 331 million people.
One of the more insidious traits of COVID-19 is that a person can be infected and not show any symptoms. Or just show minor symptoms. So they could be walking around, infecting people around them without even knowing they’re sick.
And get this: under the rules in place in the U.S., these people don’t even qualify for testing!
Indeed, you have to be pretty sick to get tested, which is probably why nearly 20% of those tested actually have the virus and nearly 5% of those people die from it.
Wondering where I got those numbers? They’re from Johns Hopkins with a little extra math applied. I built a spreadsheet yesterday and will try to update it daily. Here’s what I have so far:
Percentage testing can only rise as we test more people, but I’d like to see it over 50% and we have a long way to go. I color coded (using conditional formatting) the other two percentages; green is good and red is bad.
My little spreadsheet doesn’t just offer numbers. It calculates percentages and identifies trends. The way I see it, we want the percentage of population tested to rise, the percentage of confirmed cases to drop, and the percentage of deaths among confirmed cases to drop.
Based on this data, we’re not even close to opening the country for business again.
The only way we will be ready is if we #TestEveryone, quarantine those who have the virus, and trace those people’s contacts to ensure they’re tested and, if necessary, quarantined, too. We need to keep those who carry the virus away from the general public and the only way we can do that is to (again) #TestEveryone.
So as much as I’d like to set up my show tent in Leavenworth for Mother’s Day weekend next month, I’m hoping that the U.S. can do what it needs to do to get this virus under control before then. And with the amount of misinformation and finger pointing coming out of the White House, I seriously doubt that will happen anytime soon.
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Agree 100%.
I know you’re not a FB fan, but if you were to sneak on there, under the cover of darkness, wearing your mask, I recommend you follow Heather Cox Richardson. She is a history professor at Boston College and is able synthesize many of the moving parts as well as place today’s politics in historical context. One post each night and two live “lectures” each week.
I think you’d like her. Smart and passionate and evidence based.
I’m already overloaded. I generally know what’s right and what should be done. Learning exactly how wrong we’re getting it would not benefit me in the least. It would only make me feel worse — and there’s no benefit in that since I can’t do anything until November to help fix it. But I hope she’s getting through to the people who don’t get it yet or are getting it wrong. I’m not the one who needs her lectures; I hope the ones who need it are.
It kind of reminds me of a Twitter thread I didn’t read the other day and my response to it. Here’s a link to the tweet: https://twitter.com/sannewman/status/1251646491283935232?s=20 My response: “The people who need to read this will not.”
It IS all overloading, but I second the Heather Cox Richardson recommendation…I subscribe to her daily email and with that I feel like I’ve learned most of what the media has covered that day. She quickly summarizes all major news, not just the (current) Trump admin testing debacle. (I do still spend too much time reading too many articles, and am trying HARD to wean off that because Heather covers it so well! She is truly amazing.) Alas, she’s not likely reaching many who “need” the info :(
Here’s her letter yesterday, with a subscribe button on it, for anyone who doesn’t want to go the FB route: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-19-2020?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy
Thanks for this. I’ll take a look now.
Just because your parachute opened and slowed your descent doesn’t mean it’s okay to take it off.
LOL! That was a cartoon I saw the other day on Twitter. Let me see if I can find it…
Here you go: https://twitter.com/mtobis/status/1251525932529188865?s=20
I completely agree that testing on a far bigger scale is the only way out of this as we wait for a vaccine or new treatment.
Here (UK) we have been lied to by government ministers who keep promising a huge expansion in testing which always fails to materialise.
We are still not testing all the victims of the sudden surge of deaths in homes for the elderly. Nor are their carers routinely tested.
Nurses and doctors are now dying for want of proper PPE. Gowns and visors are running out but our medics are still expected to turn up for 13 hour shifts and somehow ‘muddle through’.
We need to start large ‘random sample’ testing to establish roughly what %age of the population have the virus. We need to know how many have it mildly or with no symptoms. These folk can pass it to others yet seem fine themselves. Women who get it seem better able to survive, having double X chromosomes seems to help.
We are now seeing survivors who have pulled through after two weeks of unconscious sedation and intubation on oxygen. These discharged people are still far from well. Their breathing is slow, they are weak, they have serious cognitive problems, language is derailed and they are weak and frightened. Some hallucinate and have symptoms like PTSD. Experts say they will need months of skilled rehabilitation. But they are the lucky ones, about half of those who are ventilated will die from the infection.
In Germany, where testing is more widespread and started earlier, they have a far more positive outlook. The mass cull of our elderly is a dirty little secret which is only just being uncovered. Doctors are writing death certificates for patients they have not even seen. They are under great pressure not to mention Covid on those documents.
We have the same story you have, but on a bigger scale. With a population of 330 millon people, who c ares if we’ve tested more people than any other country — which is what they’re claiming. We also have a lot more people than most countries.
The Germans have their act together. I miss the days when we had a competent president.
To Red W.
Thanks for the link to Heather Cox Richardson’s reports.
I’ve signed-up. She is an excellent writer.
She’s a full-time professor, and I haven’t researched her in detail but she must do this media/politics research for her classwork – otherwise I honestly don’t know how she does the letter every day! I don’t think she’s missed a day, even through all the craziness of this year (remember impeachment?!)