1/ THREAD: Some plain talk on #COVID19 testing, one of the keys to restarting society quickly and safely.
2/ The US is making steady progress to increase test capacity, but we have nowhere near enough right now to test everyone we would ideally test. 
3/ Ideally, we would test everyone with symptoms of #COVID19 , plus all their contacts, every hospitalized patient, and those in nursing homes, homeless shelters, prisons, and jails—regardless of whether they have symptoms or not.
4/ That would be far more than a million tests a day, four times more than we are doing now. (And that’s without even considering testing others at risk, such as health care and other essential workers who don’t have symptoms, which would require millions of more tests per day.)
5/ This graph shows how many tests countries around the world have done for each positive case that's turned up. The optimal ratio is probably at least 10-20 tests to find a positive, maybe far more. The US is still far below that.
6/ Until we have enough tests, we have to do the best we can with what we have. That means 1) prioritizing tests to maximize our impact 2) saving lives by getting care to those most likely to die (over age 60, medically vulnerable), and 3) reducing spread.
7/ People most likely to spread #COVID19 are those in hospitals and congregate facilities, where the virus can spread explosively and kill quickly, as recent MMWR report from @CDCgov shows. cdc.gov/mmwr/index.html
8/ At @ResolveTSL, we put out a brief on which groups to prioritize for testing. Check it out: bit.ly/3bMgVzU
9/ Until we have enough tests it's important to do your part to stop the spread. Stay home. Wear a mask when out. Wash your hands often.
10/ Implement the other pillars of the #BoxItIn strategy to limit spread: Isolate those infected. Quarantine those exposed. Ramp up contact tracing. If any part of the box is weak, the virus can escape. Testing is important but only one of the important steps.
11/ Let’s get this right. There are trillions of virus particles out there. No SINGLE measure is going to turn the tide (other than a vaccine, which will take a while). Not travel restrictions. Not lock downs. Not testing. We'll succeed by taking a comprehensive approach.
12/12 Bottom line: as we continue to scale up capacity, we need to be smart about testing and careful about how we safely resume some activities. Read more about testing in my new @FoxNews op-ed. fxn.ws/2xYGMWN
