The COVID-19 testing saga in the United States

Since I spend most of my time in the USA, I am “privileged” to all news in this country. There is good news and bad news. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of nonsense and misleading (even false) information. I am going to try to break it down in pieces.

When I am writing this, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus dashboard (which I recommend to everyone who wants to know more, the United States is the absolute leader in positive cases ( 5.8 million) and deaths (180,000).The USA has 4% of the world population and has 24% of all positive cases and 22% of all mortalities related to COVID 19.

These numbers are incorrect because many cases are not confirmed by testing and therefore do not show up in these statistics. The real number is much higher! But let us focus on the USA and identify the many problems.

When a person has symptoms that warrant a test, then there are 4 options:

If a person tests positive for COVID-19, the healthcare professionals can decide if and what therapeutic measure should be taken. The majority will have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic. About 15% have a serious infection that requires oxygen. About 5% seem to have a critical infection that requires ventilation in the Intensive Care unit and unfortunately, some of them will not survive. The global mortality rate is over 3%.

Once a person is tested positive, you need to start contact tracing and identify individuals with whom this person has been in contact and perform testing with the goal of isolating these individuals to avoid spreading of the virus. Some of the identified persons will develop symptoms as well, however many (up to 40%) are asymptomatic.

Those persons need to be quarantined since they can spread the virus. Even when you do not have symptoms, that does not mean that if you infect someone else, that they will not have symptoms!

In both cases, the individual will develop antibodies against COVID-19 that may prevent future infections with COVID-19

If a person has a false positive test result it means that this individual will have to undergo the same isolation measures (quarantine) until either the quarantine period is over or when a new test results shows that the person is negative. This happened with the Governor of Ohio, a few hours before he was supposed to meet President Trump. This is inconvenient for the affected individual, but the good thing is that this person cannot spread the virus.

If a person tests negative for COVID-19 than it means that either the active infection is over or that this individual has never been infected. The only way to find that out is to test for antibodies. If there are antibodies, then the person has been exposed and may be protected for a future infection. If there are no antibodies detected, then this person has the same chances to become infected like anybody else.

If a person has a false negative result, then this could cause a problem. A symptomatic person will most likely be retested and take precautionary measures and stay at home or the hospital. An asymptomatic person still may spread the virus. The chances for a false negative are low but cannot be excluded

You do not have to be a super scientist to understand that the spread of the virus can only be done by persons who are infected, whether you are symptomatic or not.

Now suddenly you see a complete turnaround coming from the US CDC, now saying that if you are asymptomatic, you do not have to be tested when you have been in contact with an infected person. THIS IS BIZAAR AND IRRESPONSIBLE. I really want to say this is stupidity.

It all comes down from “guidance” from the White House with the self-announced war President Trump allowing that more people have died from this virus than all the post-World War II conflicts combined. He said multiple times on record that if you reduce the testing, the number of cases will go down. That is the simplistic reasoning that you would expect from a toddler.

The sad thing is that his blind followers believe his self-serving rhetoric. But for someone who, according to his niece, had someone else taking his school tests, we should not be too surprised with this demonstration of ignorance.

Ignoring the importance of testing is crazy. You cannot count the number of times that Trump has said that the US has the most and the best COVID-19 tests. It is not about the number of tests that you perform, it is about the number of persons that are infected. Like I mentioned before, he does this for self-serving purposes.

What will happen if this new “guidance” is followed? If a person has been in contact with an infected person, then he or she may become infected and start spreading the virus. People that are symptomatic may have enough common sense and stay inside, but asymptomatic people are going to be the new spreaders and can infect many people without even knowing.

The newly infected people will then become spreaders, most of them will have mild or no-symptoms, some of them get hospitalized and then some will die. Does this sound familiar?

Even today we hear that in many states the number of new infections is going down. STILL THERE ARE MORE THAN 30,000 NEW CASES EVERY DAY!!!! It is just a matter of time before we see the impact of the changed testing policy.

Many have asked what the role of the White House Coronavirus Task Force was. The answer to that question was that all experts signed off on this policy change. One of the most prominent experts in this Task Force, Dr. Antony Fauci was named as one of them. The problem is that when this change was discussed, he had general anesthesia to undergo a surgical procedure. Why this blatant lying? Dr. Fauci is a top expert whose life is threatened several times because he is telling the true facts. My wife and I recently went to Washington DC to see personally that the side of the street where he lives has parking restrictions, while 2 dark grey vehicles are in front of the house for protection. WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE USA?

How can you trust the statements coming from the person who wants to reduce testing, while at the same time he is tested regularly and everyone who potentially comes in his vicinity must be tested? The Ohio Governor recently tested positive 6 hours before he was supposed to meet the President and he no longer could participate in the planned activities. Then it turned out he had a false positive result, but OK, you better be safe than sorry.

The testing itself has been another problem. In the beginning of the pandemic it was very difficult to get a test. I know this from personal experience since my wife has been tested twice. It was not easy to get a test. And then the waiting for the results took several days. Even now, it can take several days before you get a result. Don’t you think that it should be easier to get a faster result? Bill Gates in an interview said it was easy to resolve: “Don’t pay for it if takes more than 2 days to get a result”

We just experienced the National Republican Convention. President Trump showed up all the time and never has he been seen with a mask. This is the time to set an example. And yes, he sets an example, A VERY BAD ONE.

Even today when I am writing this, he is using the White House for his acceptance speech and has invited 1,500 guests who are all sitting close to each other on the South Lawn without masks!

The passing of more than 180,000 persons from COVID-19 in the USA does not seem to affect him at all. This morning I heard that this number is expected to increase beyond 200,000 in a few weeks. He is all about himself and a perfect example of how not to be.

The time that the USA was leading in fighting global pandemics is over. No that is not entirely true, the USA is leading. In number of cases and fatalities.

Jan M Bult

August 2020