One Seattle woman who thinks she may have coronavirus has publicly shared her story on her quest to get tested and let me just warn you now, this is both infuriating and downright scary. Twitter user “sketchy lady” used the platform of her quest for the test and for lack of a better term, her story is quickly going … viral.
I warned you that thread would be infuriating. Once it took off, she shared one last bit of vital information. She said: “COVID-19 HOTLINE: 1-800-525-0127 DON'T CALL unless you are experiencing all symptoms or have been exposed to a case. Leave the lines open to people who need it most. Any other questions can be answered on the CDC, WHO, or WA public health sites.”
Why are people like “sketchy lady” getting the runaround when it comes to testing? Early kits were found to be defective and new kits have been delayed for weeks. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control inexplicably used strict guidelines when determining who to test early on and potential patients and carriers when untested. Experts are baffled at the C.D.C’s bungled response out of the gate. Harvard University epidemiologist Dr. Michael Mina told the New York Times, “The incompetence has really exceeded what anyone would expect with the C.D.C. This is not a difficult problem to solve in the world of viruses.”
The good news is C.D.C. officials say they expect a million kits to be distributed by the end of the week. The bad news is, it is difficult to trust anyone in the Trump administration at this point and C.D.C. officials aren’t exactly gaining public trust with mismanagement and secrecy about how the agency has handled the threat.
Despite repeated inquiries from The New York Times, C.D.C. officials have never provided a full account of the obstacles the agency faced in producing a diagnostic test. On Monday, officials appeared to have removed figures on the agency website counting how many Americans had been tested, and abruptly canceled a news conference just as it was to begin.
Unfortunately, extreme budget cuts to public health departments may have also slowed the response to COVID-19. USA Today reports on the cuts to these government entities, cuts that are now coming back to haunt us.
In the last 15 years, public health, the country's frontline defense in epidemics, lost 45% of its inflation-adjusted funding for staff, training, equipment and supplies. The Public Health Emergency Fund, created for such disease or disaster relief is long depleted. And much of the money the federal government is racing to come up with now to combat the COVID-19 outbreak will be pulled from other often-dire health needs and likely will arrive too late to hire the needed personnel.
As Republicans hit the campaign trail in the coming months to further the notion tax cuts will cure all that ails us, let us all remind them their tax cuts might be the very reason you get sick in the first place.
If you are concerned about contracting coronavirus, I highly recommend this article from my colleague, Mark Sumner. It contains a helpful list of not only how to avoid contracting the virus, but how to navigate the situation we now find ourselves in.
Editor’s note: Story has been updated to remove the Twitter user's alleged real name, as it was removed from her public profile.
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