this was the sleight-of-hand spin, as propagated by Trump at the 11 May 2020 press conference at the WH rose garden, and later parroted by Admiral Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary in the Dept of Health and Human Services. This AM, Giroir testified remotely before the Senate, during which Senator Romney scold the admiral. by innuendo Trump, for politicizing testing numbers. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/co...coronavirus-response-reopening-plans-n1205051 "I understand that politicians are going to frame data in a way that's most positive politically — of course, I don't expect that from admirals," Romney said, referring to Giroir's status as an admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. "But yesterday, you (plural) celebrated that we had done more tests and more tests per capita even than South Korea, but you (plural) ignored the fact that they accomplished theirs at the beginning of the outbreak. "Well, we treaded water during February and March, and as a result, by March 6, the U.S. had completed 2,000 tests, whereas South Korea had conducted more than 140,000 tests," he continued. "Partially as a result of that, they have 256 deaths and we have almost 80,000 deaths. "I find our testing record nothing to celebrate whatsoever," Romney said.
Maybe a better metric would be tests per capita divided by deaths. Or maybe more simply tests per death. Obviously, the need for testing is greater in places where the disease and therefore deaths are more common. South Korea will test less now because the disease is less prevalent. Also, maybe a sparsely populated state like Wyoming needn't test much because they don't have many deaths and it'd be unfair to say they aren't testing enough.
South Korea is getting pretty savvy and strategic with testing. As an example, after a long weekend in early May, they had a nightclub district in Seoul suddenly become a viral hot spot, with one confirmed case potentially infecting hundreds and spreading throughout the nation. In less than a week, they've already tested 22,000 people who may have been in those nightclubs during the relevant period or have come in contact with someone who did. They're still doing contact tracing like mad where they can and asking/begging people to get themselves tested. No matter what, there will still probably be an increase in infected cases for a little while, but if successful, the numbers should go back down sooner rather than later. So basically, their testing is now being done in a more strategic manner. And they'll likely have this "flexibility" as long as they can keep containing the spread.
Guangdong province alone had done more than 5 million tests and China have more than 30 provinces. Wuhan will test 11M people again after 6 new cases emerged recently. 9.3 M US tests is not even 20% of the tests that China had done.
Can they not just try do their jobs the best they can and not pause to pat themselves on the back every day? You know. Shut up and dribble.
Jared Kushner has reportedly been telling Trump to do fewer coronavirus tests to improve the stock market. According to Financial Times While grappling with the worst COVID outbreak in the world, Trump has been wary of taking actions that could trigger economic shock waves. His son-in-law, the de facto advised "too many testing and ventilatorrs could spook the stock market. Trump paid closer attention to Kushner's advise than the scientists. https://www.businessinsider.in/inte...ove-the-stock-market/articleshow/75748463.cms
Getting test in place in the right place at the right time is a basic necessity and not something to brag or propagandize about. Now, do that for tracing.
