Does anyone know if this is true?
"In three to four weeks, there will be a major shortage of chemical reagents for coronavirus testing . . . . any public health response that counts on widespread testing in the United States is doomed to fail. . . .instead, to immediately gear up for epidemic intelligence, based on techniques used for many decades. Among those is so-called illness surveillance . . . .”
Quote taken from this article from yesterday’s New York Times.
It’s Too Late to Avoid Disaster, but There Are Still Things We Can Do
I found this highly detailed article on testing, which points out the potential bottlenecks, but ventures no opinion on how soon testing might become rare or impossible.
Coronavirus Testing Materials That Are in Short Supply
In my understanding, replacing testing with epidemic surveillance would be brain-work intensive and require people who are experienced and as objective as possible. In other words, a work force not easily and quickly assembled.
Will there be issues with shortages of testing chemicals before the U.S. has even gotten minimum testing processes in place? If this might be an issue we should be hearing about mitigation plans from leaders right now. I keep hearing proposed plans that hinge on that perfect moment when the U.S. can perform as many tests as needed. Might that time be much farther off than we’re being led to believe?