I began to lose it this week.
I know, I have it very easy. I’m not required to put myself at risk every day as a hospital or essential worker. I’m still employed. I’ve got some savings, and don’t have to worry about basic survival. I get food delivered. I haven’t lost any family members or friends from COVID-19 (though I did lose my dad in a horrible accident, and couldn’t get to the burial). My apartment gets plenty of sun and I have two dogs who love me. I get a couple of good walks in a day, and have plenty to read. I don’t have kids. I have direct, personal experience of living through a plague once before in my life.
In January, a mystery illness swept through a call center in a skyscraper on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Close to 30 people in one department alone had symptoms — dry, deep coughs and fevers they could not shake. When they gradually returned to work after taking sick days, they sat in their cubicles looking wan and tired.
“I’ve started to think it was the coronavirus,” said Julie Parks, a 63-year-old employee who was among the sick. “I may have had it, but I can’t be sure. It’s limbo.”
The revelation this week that a death in the United States in early February was the result of the coronavirus has significantly altered the understanding of how early the virus may have been circulating in this country. Researchers now believe that hidden outbreaks were creeping through cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle and Boston in January and February, earlier than previously known.
Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas will reopen "massive" amounts of businesses soon.
The Republican governor Wednesday teased an imminent return of hair salons and restaurant dining at a time when President Donald Trump is aiming for a swift nationwide reopening.
Abbott also signaled that large urban centers such as Dallas, where the coronavirus outbreak is more severe, would begin reopening under different rules than rural areas that have fewer cases.
Now that tests are available, volume needs to be ramped up. To do that, the U.S. must overcome the current shortage of processing equipment and testing supplies, including critical chemicals needed to process samples and produce test results.
Processing a COVID-19 test can be time-consuming and expensive. A New York Times report tracks a nasal sample’s journey involving “3 Vans, 6 Coolers, a Plane, a Storm and 2 Labs.” The initial strain in testing “came from a lack of test kits, but now there are not enough nasal swabs, not enough nurses. There is a pileup at the labs themselves and a limited supply of the chemicals needed to identify the virus,” the Times reports.
Quest, a major clinical lab chain, can process 35,000 specimens a day at 12 locations around the country. State-run laboratories may process only a few dozen samples a day. And hospitals and doctors’ offices, still fewer. The U.S. needs industrial-grade capacity.
A report released by the American Enterprise Institute and co-authored by former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said at least 750,000 tests must be run per week. A new paper by the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity estimates that the U.S. will need to administer one million tests per day, and to repeatedly screen the entire population, the U.S. will need to reach 22 million tests per day.
