i'm kinda torn on my testing stance right now. in a perfect world, we would have the supplies and ability to test 3-5mm per day, and literally blanket the country with tests. symptomatic, asymptomatic, guy walking down the street, random groupings of 500-1000 in different cities and states, etc. but we do not live in a perfect world, and we're having to get over that.
on last week tonight a couple days ago, john oliver hit on the testing, and did a story we've all seen. a very sick woman trying to get a test, and she's unable. and while this is very sad, and fucking embarrassing for the country, her inability to get tested is not really the issue. she thinks she has it, and since there's no vaccine or treatment, there's nothing she can really do except wait it out, hydrate, and hope she won't need hospital admission/ventilator assistance. a positive test for her doesn't really help anyone, including her.
but this is the problem. we don't have enough tests nationwide, so of course the stories that supplement this one fact will look like this. but they shouldn't. the stories should highlight the 350 asymptomatic workers who tested positive in a meat-packing plant. the stories should be about how random testing (for both the disease and the antibodies) can actually help us learn about the disease, where it's been, where it's going, and help establish a timeline to reopen the fucking country.
i'm not mad about the john oliver stories. i'm a huge fan, and he hasn't really done testing, so it's fine. but i think it distracts us. i don't want people at home saying, "god, what a shame, that woman and people like her really should be able to get tested." that completely misses the point here, which i'm starting to think is not an accident. the country wants to reopen. r's and d's alike. we all do. but getting sick people tested isn't the key to that. getting well people tested is.
this is like your kid who wants to play hockey, and you're not so sure, because it's dangerous and he's young and frail. so instead of waiting til next year while he works on skating skills and gets all the proper equipment, you say fuck it, make him play tomorrow, and on top of that, tell him he has to play in flip flops and no pads, while the other team is the canadian national hockey team.
i don't know how this gets fixed. i don't even know how to get the focus on this as a news story. you can't really have a bunch of well people out and about yelling about getting tested. the only people out and about yelling are carrying long guns and probably wouldn't get tested if you offered it to them for free.
we needed masks, and companies finally made a ton of masks. we needed ventilators, and i guess we made or purchased or traded (i know newsom sent some east) but we eventually got them. how in this situation, where we need tests (swabs, reagents, all the pieces) and have companies that can make them, can we not start churning them out? two months ago, pence said "we would have 6 million tests ready by the end of next week". that never happened.
and now the task force isn't even really meeting anymore. and i'm sure trump doesn't want the numbers to keep going up, which will inevitably happen if/when testing ramps up. does somebody need to challenge him to get the total tests up to 25 or 50 million? does pelosi need to go on tv and say he can't get it done? or is testing slightly more than midsized european countries just the standard now for success?
it's mind-bottling to me that this is how it's ending. we're reopening with no skates and no pads. no tests, and just a wait-and-see, hope-for-the-best attitude. it's absolutely mind-blowing, except that it isn't. it's absolutely expected.