White House press conference today on 150M Abbott rapid antigen tests. whitehouse.gov/briefings-stat… Some reactions to what was said at the event: 1/x
As background: coming arrival of the Abbott rapid antigen testing was previously announced by White House on Aug 27th. washingtonpost.com/health/white-h… 2/x
150M is substantial number of Ag tests. Their arrival will be very welcome. Important to plan for how these and other Ag tests coming on line should best be used. It’s a very big supply of testing, but not enough to meet range of potential public and institutional needs. 3/x
Important to use them for testing, screening in nursing homes, hospice, at risk populations, as described in afternoon event. But also prisons, food processing facilities, immigrant detention facilities, for example, where outbreaks have been large, widespread across country 4/x
Very good to suggest states use testing to make k-12 schools safer. Though systems will need to be set up to do that. E.g. 1 person can't do hundreds of tests upon school arrival. Depending on who is to be tested, may require team of people who need training to do tests right 5/x
Governor Tate (MS) said he will use them for universities and k-12 schools, which is a good use for these tests. But he said that all k-12 teachers can get tested on daily basis. That won’t be possible yet.... 6/x
... there are >3.5M teachers in K-12 schools. Testing all daily would mean 108M tests/month going to teachers alone. Not nearly enough for that at this point. 7/x
WH says 6.5M tests will be shipped this week. Not clear how quickly prodxn will ramp up in order to meet the range of testing needs described at event today. Early reports said Abbott will be ramping up production to 50M tests a month. Not announced when that will happen 8/x
If plan is to use screening tests (weekly? a few times a week?) to US K-12 students (~56M), university students (~15.3M) university faculty (~1.5M), and/or food processing facility workers (~150k), for example, then we'll need to expand antigen testing substantially 9/x
Hopefully there'll be more Ag testing coming on line over course of fall. Once produced at very high scale, getting them distributed to governors, local leaders, priority groups will be key and will be challenging. Need to inc. high risk communities, esp people of color 10/x
It was noted in press conf that we have done more testing than any other country so far. But that amount of testing unfortunately has been necessary, and continues to be, since the US has had more COVID cases and deaths than any other country. coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html 11/x
The US even now continues to rank 20th highest of all countries in world in terms of new cases per day per 100,000 population. 12/x nytimes.com/interactive/20…
VP said in press conf that cases, positivity rising in 10 states in Midwest, near west. But cases actually increasing in 34 states+territories. Would have been better to give people full national picture + best pub health messaging to limit spread 13/x nytimes.com/interactive/20…
From Dr Atlas: “We know that there are areas of the country that have more cases. This is to be expected with more social mingling.” But he shouldn’t normalize higher cases from more mingling. And should refute latest "herd immunity" recommendations.. floridapolitics.com/archives/36964… 14/x
...Instead he should use his position to explain how social mingling causes more spread, and why that should be avoided. Should encourage responsible action: physical distancing, masks, avoiding large gatherings, > ventilation in buildings, testing, tracing, isolation. /end
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