THREAD: In our report on steps to reopen America, we reference the need to be able to test at least 750,000 people a week. That number is being discussed. Here is more clarification on how we derived it, and what it means. 1/n aei.org/research-produ…
750,000 is the approximate number of U.S. medical visits per week for influenza like illness during peak flu season. We use it as estimate of what’s necessary in setting where #covid19 isn’t yet circulating, and we want to detect furtive spread. That is not the situation now. 2/n
Right now, #covid19 is epidemic. And even when we’re likely to seek to reopen parts of America in May and June, there will be baseline spread. The epidemic won’t simply collapse. Against that backdrop, we need much more test capacity to safely make transition to normal life 3/n
How much? This is subject of intense discussion and analysis. Likely several million or more. One metric: there are about 4 million outpatient visits for primary care services a week. We may want to make covid testing routine. We can get there. But it’ll take additional steps 4/n
So far, what we’ve done to get more test capacity is get more labs in the game. Now we need to expand capacity of those labs. That requires more kits and more platforms. We need to build more machines, expand throughput, manufacture more kits, deploy systems in more places 5/n
We need a bigger market for platforms outside traditional healthcare setting. Business community may consider taking active role in deploying testing near workplace so consumers have easy access to routine tests. This would expand market, drive capital investment in systems 6/n
We can get there. These are achievable testing goals and will meaningfully improve our ability to detect outbreaks when they are small and successfully implement case-based strategies to contain spread, and avoid epidemics. 7/n
