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The message I've heard is "If you feel sick at all, assume it's COVID-19 and act accordingly."

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Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

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if confirmation won't change how the patient will be treated

I get this, and the need to converse PPE etc. is very, very important.

But there's no protocol in place to make up for the lack of confirmed cases. There should be a runny tally of not just confirmed cases, but also presumed cases.

And it's not just whether confirmation will change how the patient is treated, but also whether confirmation will change how the patient and those connected to the patient behave.

I know we'll all on the same page here, it's just so frustrating. And this is why America is doomed to follow the same course as, if not worse than, Italy.

Sigh.

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Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

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quarantined themselves after contact with a known case, and publicly announced it.

Jodi, your comments (about the folks in close contact with Mr. Jodi), and the fact that you yourself are asymptomatic, are all encouraging, to be sure! Certainly there's no reason for me personally to panic. (I'll save that for when we run out of TP!)

But part of what makes me so mad is what pique is saying here in her quote -- the person I'm talking about has not (to my knowledge) made any specific effort to notify contacts. If she had, I should have been notified in some other, more formal, way besides on FB. And the university's daily corona-update missives continue to report no cases in the university community and no potential cases being monitored.

Except, she is *in* the university community, and because she's a chair, she's interacting with a lot more people beyond her dept moreso that other faculty/staff.

Continued reports that say "no cases here" just create and reinforce a false sense of security in the community, and will likely influence parents' decisions to allow their children to return to their off-campus apartments, thinking that there are fewer cases here than in other parts of the state. All of this would be different if 1) there was more systematic testing of anyone who is symptomatic, and 2) more forthrightness about the presence of cases in the absence of testing.

Sigh.

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Originally posted by wtg:
The message I've heard is "If you feel sick at all, assume it's COVID-19 and act accordingly." That means notifying everyone you could have been in contact with that you are sick. If it's not COVID-19, it's probably something else you could pass along and you should be taking the same precautions.

There's no way to fine tune this so "just" people who test positive are isolated.

I share your frustration. There should be national directives on this, not the repeated mantra of "we've put millions of tests out there".

Tests are *so* last week.

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Health officials in New York, California and other hard-hit parts of the country are restricting coronavirus testing to health care workers and the severely ill, saying the battle to contain the virus is lost and the country is moving into a new phase of the pandemic response.

As cases spike sharply in those places, they are bracing for an onslaught and directing scarce resources where they are needed most to save people’s lives. Instead of encouraging broad testing of the public, they’re focused on conserving masks, ventilators and intensive care beds — and on getting still-limited tests to health-care workers and the most vulnerable. The shift is further evidence that rising levels of infection and illness have begun to overwhelm the health care system.

A similar message was hammered Saturday by members of the White House coronavirus task force, who said it was urgent to conserve scarce supplies and offered guidelines about who should get tested. Top priority, they said, should go to those who are hospitalized, along with health-care workers, symptomatic residents of long-term care facilities and people over 65 — especially those with heart and lung disease, which place them at higher risk.

Health officials are now struggling with a complicated and shifting message. More people can get tested as drive-through sites open and more tests are finally available. Nevertheless, those with mild symptoms should stay home and isolate. And everyone should practice social distancing to preserve the health care system’s finite resources.

To convey those points clearly, many officials are speaking in increasingly blunt terms, saying that wide testing could jeopardize the lives of health care workers and the U.S. response by burning through precious supplies as a tidal wave of sick people descend on the system.

“In a universe where masks and gowns are starting to become scarce, every time we test someone who doesn’t need one, we’re taking that mask and gown away from someone in the intensive care unit,” said Demetre Daskalakis, deputy commissioner for the Division of Disease Control of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The tactical and messaging shifts come after weeks of efforts to expand access to testing after the federal government’s botched rollout, which hampered states’ ability to know whether the virus was already circulating and to take steps to get ahead of it.

Millions more tests are now available. And the Food & Drug Administration on Friday approved the first coronavirus test that can deliver results in 45 minutes. The turnaround time is far faster than for current tests, which are typically sent to centralized labs and can take days to return results.

The FDA granted “emergency use authorization” to Cepheid, a California company that makes a rapid molecular test, for use in “patient care settings,” but the company and the FDA said initially it will be used in hospitals, emergency rooms and urgent care centers.

The test will “help alleviate the pressure” on health-care facilities by helping doctors find out quickly whether a patient has the disease and select the appropriate treatment, David Persing, Cepheid’s chief medical and technology officer, said in an interview.

Despite those developments, however, many health officials remain concerned that testing sites will be inundated and that the president’s previous assertions that anyone who wanted a test “could have one” will lead many with mild cases to squander finite resources.

“I’m just scared there’s going to be mass confusion when people find out there is a testing site, are worried about their covid status, and they’re going to mob the testing site,” said Michael Fraser, executive director of the association that represents state health directors. “It’s confusing to people to hear that testing is being made available in a much more convenient way, and they think, ‘Hey, this is great, let’s get tested.’ ”

New York City’s Daskalakis said people with a manageable fever and cough who aren’t at high risk for severe illness should assume they have covid-19. Seeking a test exposes health care workers administering them and wastes resources, since nothing would change for those individuals based on their results, he said. There is no approved treatment for the disease.

A “negative” test could also provide false reassurance as covid-19 has become widespread, he said. When one of his patients with symptoms — who sought a test against his advice — got a negative result, Daskalakis told the person to presume he had the disease anyway and to isolate himself.

New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, which treated the state’s first coronavirus case, is testing only a minority of the hundred-plus patients with respiratory symptoms who come to the emergency department each day, said Jolion McGreevy, the emergency department medical director.

“The default assumption is yes — anyone who comes in with any kind of fever, cough, respiratory symptom, flu-like illness, we’re making the assumption that they have this,” he said, based on the prevalence of community transmission in New York. “It’s very likely you have it. There’s no benefit for you to test.”

Other county and state health officials are sounding similar warnings, weeks after federal officials announced 1.1 million tests had been shipped out and another 4 million were coming.

Los Angeles County health officials advised doctors in a letter Thursday to give up on testing patients as a strategy to contain the outbreak, instructing them to test patients only if a positive result could change how they would be treated, the Los Angeles Times reported. The department “is shifting from a strategy of case containment to slowing disease transmission and averting excess morbidity and mortality,” according to the letter.

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For starters, those infected should reveal themselves if the places where they work will not do so because of now-outdated privacy concerns.

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Originally posted by piqué:
Jodi, two people in MT higher ed (that I am aware of) quarantined themselves after contact with a known case, and publicly announced it. One of them tested positive.

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Where are our philanthropists when we need them, since our government is a total sh!tshow?

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Originally posted by piqué:
What is actually needed is regular, systematic, and repeated testing of *everyone*. Then those who test positive can be removed from circulation in their communities, whether they have symptoms or not, and those who test negative and who don't live with those who test positive can continue to do their jobs and patronize businesses. Meanwhile treatment and a vaccine are being developed.

Social distancing could reduce the strain on resources, but it won't reduce the ultimate number of cases. To prevent people from getting infected you need universal testing. We need to mobilize this like yesterday.

Where are our philanthropists when we need them, since our government is a total sh!tshow?