If a disease sickens but no one can prove it is Covid-19 is there really an epidemic?

Nurses COVID

Updated:   Published

Specializes in ICU, trauma, neuro.

That seems to be the philosophy of the current administration. At first I considered it "possible" that the wealthiest nation on Earth couldn't garner more than a few thousand Covid-19 test kits. Then today I read this story...

https://news.trust.org/item/20200309234801-s0bah

Is there really a single official anywhere who can with a straight face argue that we lack kits to test workers at the very epicenter indeed the very facility in the United States where over 80 percent of the fatalities from Covid 19 in the United States have occurred. That would be akin to the Soviet era government claiming that everyone who got sick and died after Chernobyl possibly died of the flu because there were insufficient geiger counters to measure the radiation. After all if we only count cases where a test kits shows a positive result and we have under a few thousand kits then the Covid 19 infection count simply cannot exceed that level. No doubt the current administration may call for a ban on test kits as a national priority to prevent spread of the infection.

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Specializes in ED.

If you don't test, then you can't tell people that there are thousands currently sick with it, then there is less of a panic. Probably trying to save the stock markets from crashing.

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On 3/10/2020 at 4:02 AM, twinmommy+2 said:

If you don't test, then you can't tell people that there are thousands currently sick with it, then there is less of a panic. Probably trying to save the stock markets from crashing.

According to the news yesterday apparently that ship has sailed as far as the stock market plunging is concerned.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

Still, don't expect this administration to provide accurate data on this outbreak...that is something that is obvioysly not priority for them.

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Specializes in ICU, trauma, neuro.
55 minutes ago, toomuchbaloney said:

Still, don't expect this administration to provide accurate data on this outbreak...that is something that is obvioysly not priority for them.

This is one issue that will definitely sway even a percentage of the current administrations "solid base" against him ( of which he cannot afford to lose even a single percent). When it comes to issues like this people simply will not tolerate deliberate dishonesty. Does anyone doubt that for example Bernie Sander would at least be honest about the numbers and make test kits available to people who work in healthcare actually exposed to the virus at US "ground zero"?

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
7 hours ago, myoglobin said:

This is one issue that will definitely sway even a percentage of the current administrations "solid base" against him ( of which he cannot afford to lose even a single percent). When it comes to issues like this people simply will not tolerate deliberate dishonesty. Does anyone doubt that for example Bernie Sander would at least be honest about the numbers and make test kits available to people who work in healthcare actually exposed to the virus at US "ground zero"?

ANY other competent political leader, really, could be expected to have responded in a more honest and altruistic fashion. IMHO

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