by Calculated Risk on 3/28/2020 05:18:00 PM

It is one thing to finally have the capacity to do test-and-trace (not there yet). But we also need the infrastructure in place.

Questions to ask:

1. Who is in charge of the Test-and-trace taskforce?

2. Do we have the tools ready to go? (Software, database, etc)

3. Do we have the manpower trained? (Not healthcare workers)

4. Do we have tools ready to track those in self quarantine? South Korea calls people twice a day in quarantine to see how they are doing, if they need medical help or food, and to schedule a follow-up test when they are feeling better.

5. Do we have trained manpower to call people twice a day in quarantine?

When I first started posting this data (thanks to the COVID Tracking Project), testing was so low, that just tracking the number of tests made sense.

The percentage positive is also critical. Unfortunately some states and labs don't report all negative tests, although that is supposed to change soon.

The real key is to have enough tests that the US can test all people with symptoms (even mild), all close contacts of those testing positive (aka Test-and-Trace), healthcare workers and first responders fairly regularly (upon request), staff at retirement communities and nursing homes, and those people that regularly visit those facilities (it is a burden on older people not see their families).

Notes: Data for the previous couple of days is updated and revised, so graphs might change.

Also, I include all tests in the total including pending.

The percent positive excludes the pending tests.

There were 114,655 tests reported over the last 24 hours.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.

The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 17%.

Testing must continue to be expanded until the percent positive declines to 5% or lower.   This is based on results from South Korea.

Test. Test. Test.

Note: 44  Medics have died in Italy.   Protect our healthcare workers first (masks, gowns, shields, etc)!