Diagnostic testing is critical for helping individuals know their covid19 infection status, get treatment to get better. Having fast, point of care, reliable tests that are broadly available will dramatically change our ability to keep people safe, help them receive care. 1/n
People organizing, volunteering at @covid19tracking provide valuable data for tracking testing capacity. These data can help show when we are getting closer to the needed levels of testing - levels that were effective in countries like South Korea. covidtracking.com 2/n
Given efforts to contain the spread in S. Korea, it’s estimated that we will need testing capacity of about 600K test per week in the U.S. aei.org/research-produ… 3/n
Improving testing rate - Abbott recently developed a POC, rapid test AND they claim to be able to produce ~50K tests/day. If there are no issues with production, # of instruments, or supply chain, then testing may soon be broadly available.
abbott.com/corpnewsroom/p… 4/n
abbott.com/corpnewsroom/p… 4/n
Testing is also critical for protecting our families, neighbors, and communities. Testing allows for contact tracing. 5/n
Contact tracing is the process to find those spreading the virus, isolate them (to stop spreading to others), help them get better (shortening the time spreading), and monitor their contacts (make sure they didn’t spread it to their family, neighbors, friends, community). 6/n
This process of test, isolate, treat, and monitor contacts has worked to break chains of transmission in other outbreaks. People in West Africa used this approach to stop Ebola spread. cdc.gov/cdctv/diseasea… 7/n
Contact tracing can be a time consuming process if done manually. That’s why we need a surge of people to help. Training, coordinating, protecting, and monitoring people with contact tracing will be a major task. npr.org/sections/healt… 8/n
Tracking data that contact tracing teams collect requires tools to coordinate efforts and use the data to understand our progress on fighting the virus. The WHO has developed and deployed data tools to support contact tracing, field epi investigations. who.int/godata 9/n
Again, contact tracing can be a time consuming process if done manually. That’s why, in addition to surging people, we need to develop, deploy technologies that can rapidly scale contact tracing capabilities. 10/n
Several countries have deployed a range of technologies for contact tracing - South Korea, China, Israel - some more controversial than others. nytimes.com/2020/03/16/wor… 11/n
And, as my colleague @llborio has noted, we need to find technological solutions that preserve civil liberties.
wsj.com/articles/traci… 12/n
wsj.com/articles/traci… 12/n
Given that the U.S. has been at the forefront of the digital revolution, I am hopeful we can find solutions that respect our cultural values and are effective at fighting the virus at scale and speed. 13/n
Last, tracking contact tracing efforts provide information on the progress of controlling the pandemic. When epi teams find the majority of cases through contact tracing instead of through community transmission, then we know public health measures are slowing the spread. 14/n
