Trump is right: Testing is the way back to work and school

Make sure to let us know what you think... we now have comments turned ON below the article!

The mainstream media spends very little time, if any, reporting on the successes of President Trump’s efforts to combat COVID-19 in the US. Plenty of criticism is directed at his efforts, but the real achievements are overlooked and underreported. It may seem as if the president is tooting his own horn, so to speak, when he talks about the monumental success of his White House Coronavirus Response Task Force, but here’s why he does it: if he doesn’t, no one else will.

Testing is the key to beating the virus

As Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said in a recent Senate hearing, “All roads back to work and back to school run through testing.

The president is very focused on the amount of testing done in the US and points out that the US has done more coronavirus testing than any other country.

We built the most advanced and robust testing anywhere in the world, and we’ve done more testing than any country anywhere in the world.

President Trump continues to emphasize COVID-19 testing capability and says that it is a core element of the plan to safely “reopen” America.

10,000,000 COVID-19 tests

In fact, as of this week, about 3% of the US population has been tested, or almost 10,000,000 tests have been administered since March in the US. For perspective consider South Korea, admittedly a smaller country with fewer people, but heralded as managing the virus outbreak well. South Korea has conducted, as of this week, 655,000 tests, which amounts to about 1% of their population.

The US is by far, the country hardest hit by COVID-19, with over a million reported cases, and now over 80,000 deaths. There is some speculation that the number of deaths includes deaths of patients with the virus whose deaths weren’t necessarily caused by the virus, but regardless, the numbers are higher than any other country.

Testing at 300,000 per day in the US

President Trump also pointed out that testing capacity per day had doubled from 150,000 to 300,000 per day.

Three weeks ago, we were conducting roughly 150,000 tests per day. Now we’re doing approximately 300,000 tests per day—a 100 percent increase—and it will go up substantially from that number. President Trump

The FDA has already granted emergency use approval to more than 90 different tests. These include diagnostic tests, antibody or serology tests, and now an antigen test. The point of care diagnostic tests can yield results in minutes, an improvement in waiting for results from tests that have to be sent to a lab.

According to the White House :

“New antibody tests, antigen tests, point-of-care nucleic acid testing, and genomic sequencing technologies are under development, which will enhance our coronavirus monitoring efforts.”

According to the Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Brett Giroir, the antigen tests are simpler than other tests:

This is different than the nucleic acid tests, which are very high complexity, requires the amplification of the genetic material. The antigen test really looks for the presence of the viral protein in the nose.

The antigen test will also increase the number of tests being done per day by hundreds of thousands, effectively doubling the number being done now, according to Giroir:

Do the math. That’s 9 million point-of-care tests that we will have every month in just a few weeks. It will clearly add to and, to a certain degree, transform our landscape.

Testing available for anyone that needs it

The best news of all is that testing is now widely available for those that need it. According to Giroir, testing is now available to anyone, whether they exhibit signs of the virus or believe they have been in contact with someone that has the virus.

Aid for the states

The recent CARES act bill, passed in response to the coronavirus crisis, includes $11 billion dollars for state COVID-19 testing. Especially high-risk populations, such as nursing homes and cities with high numbers of COVID-19 cases will be prioritized in the distribution of the funds.

Watch Sen. Alexander, Chairman of the Senate Health Committee talk about the importance of testing and the types of tests available in order to open up the country.

1,851 Responses

  1. Hi there! Quick question that’s completely off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My web site looks weird when browsing from my apple iphone. I’m trying to find a template or plugin that might be able to fix this problem. If you have any suggestions, please share. With thanks!

  2. What i don’t understood is actually how you’re not really much more well-liked than you might be right now. You’re so intelligent. You realize thus significantly relating to this subject, produced me personally consider it from a lot of varied angles. Its like women and men aren’t fascinated unless it is one thing to do with Lady gaga! Your own stuffs great. Always maintain it up!

  3. Popcorn maker uses a hot air popping method so no oil required; up to 98 popping rate; unique wind channel ensures constant hot air to produce healthy and tasty popcorn.

  4. Amazing blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere? A design like yours with a few simple tweeks would really make my blog stand out. Please let me know where you got your theme. Appreciate it

  5. Hello, There’s no doubt that your website might be having browser compatibility problems. When I look at your site in Safari, it looks fine however when opening in I.E., it’s got some overlapping issues. I just wanted to provide you with a quick heads up! Apart from that, excellent website!

  6. Its like you read my thoughts! You appear to understand a lot about this, such as you wrote the ebook in it or something. I feel that you simply could do with a few percent to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, that is great blog. A fantastic read. I’ll definitely be back.

  7. Hello, i believe that i noticed you visited my site so i came to “return the choose”.I’m attempting to find issues to enhance my site!I suppose its good enough to use some of your ideas!!

  8. I’d like to thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this blog. I am hoping to see the same high-grade content from you in the future as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has inspired me to get my own blog now ;)|

  9. Very nice article and right to the point. I am not sure if this is in fact the best place to ask but do you folks have any thoughts on where to hire some professional writers? Thanks 🙂

  10. You are so awesome! I don’t believe I’ve truly read through something like that before. So good to discover another person with a few original thoughts on this subject. Seriously.. thanks for starting this up. This website is one thing that is required on the web, someone with a little originality!

  11. I blog frequently and I really thank you for your content. Your article has truly peaked my interest. I’m going to take a note of your website and keep checking for new information about once per week. I opted in for your RSS feed too.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Popular