Let’s talk about how North Carolina gets back to work.
And let’s skip the obvious stuff - like hand-washing and staying home if we’re sick.
/thread - #ncpol #covid19 #coronavirus/
Who’s sick, who’s not, who’s been sick, and who hasn’t.
That’s the information that will let us track and control future localized outbreaks (which are inevitable) without requiring wide-scale shutdowns.
So what will it take to get rapid, widespread testing in NC?
Broadly speaking, there are two types of tests: molecular and antibody.
The molecular tests are the ones we’ve been using. You take a swab from the back of someone’s nose or throat, you extract the RNA, then you see if it matches the COVID RNA.
We’ve seen increased capacity, but we’ve also seen innovation. Abbott now has a machine which will give a result in 15 minutes. It got FDA approval two weeks ago and is probably the most in-demand medical device on earth.
The federal government is in charge of allocating them to states.
So far, North Carolina - like most states - has received 15 machines.
Over the next six weeks, Abbott should be able to make 2,400 of these machines.
North Carolina has roughly 3% of the national population, so let’s say we get 3% of the machines (big assumption).
That means we might get another 70 machines...
That would more than double current capacity. So more Abbott machines won't be the whole solution for us, but it’s a big piece.
HOWEVER, it may not be realistic to expect the kind of 10x growth in testing capacity which some say will be necessary to reopen without resurging the virus.
ANTIBODY TESTING
This involves pricking your finger for a blood sample that shows whether you have antibodies that indicate the virus has already been there and has been successfully fought off.
But any COVID test with an accuracy rate above 90% - when the alternative may be no test at all - has to be seriously considered.
These tests are not yet available in the millions, which is what you would need to create a national supply from which NC could receive an amount big enough to make a dent.
This week Dr. Fauci said, "Within a period of a week or so, we're going to have a rather large number of [antibody] tests that are available.”
No one knows. Estimates vary wildly. But certainly multiples of what we’re doing now.
Ramping up testing capacity doesn’t involve just pulling one lever - we have to do several different things simultaneously.
But we've got a sense of what those things are and we're being realistic about what it's going to take.