Inside Look at Developing A COVID-19 Test

Written by Jack Hassard

On March 17, 2020
covid-19 testing

Various labs are in the process of developing a COVID-19 Test. Unfortunately, the United States has been late to the crisis because the CDC decided to develop its own test kit, but it failed. It was unreliable.

In South Korea, shortly after the outbreak in China, they initiated testing. They have been able to test more than 3,600 per million people as of a few days ago. And they report very few deaths. Italy, by contrast, has tested about 826 people per million. The United States has performed 78 tests per million people.

Without testing, we will not know the status of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. There are 320 million people in the U.S. We’ve only tested 25,000. If we matched South Korea, we would have tested more than a million Americans.

So, now we keep hearing that tests are coming. Drive throughs will be set up, as New York is currently doing. Developing a COVID-19 Test is of the upmost goal in the U.S. It should be combined with social distancing, the U.S. to prevent the spread of the disease.

Johns Hopkins Case Study

Doctors at The Johns Hopkins Hospital have created their own coronavirus test. Karen Carroll, M.D., and Heba Mostafa, Ph.D., M.B.B.Ch., are busy in their lab working to expand the testing capabilities. In this very short video, they explain what they are doing, and how the test is being developed in a very rapid amount of time.

Without testing, we are in the dark. With testing, we have information that will help us determine the nature of the virus and its impact on the population.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay.

You May Also Like…

Georgia Is Not Ready to Go Back to School

Georgia Is Not Ready to Go Back to School

Georgia schools should not open. If they are open, they should close. A red line of at least 10% must be reached, but many say that a 5% test rate should be reached. Georgia’s rate of infection is 13%. Not the time to open schools.

Why Isn’t Testing free, easy, fast and accurate in the U.S.?

Why Isn’t Testing free, easy, fast and accurate in the U.S.?

Ten days ago I was tested for COVID-19. I found out today that my test was negative. As you will find out, this kind of delay between test and result is unacceptable. Yet, with COVID-19 raging again around the country, this is the normal for testing. This is an article by Zoë McLaren published on the Conversation, and republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Do I have Covid-19?

Do I have Covid-19?

Do I have COVID-19? About 1.1 million people in Georgia have been tested for COVID-19. Nearly 21,000 new cases were reported today. Although the number of positive tests has been about 10%, today’s results indicated that 16% of the tests were positive. To stop the spread of the virus, contact tracing needs to be expanded and supported. But will it?

0 Comments

Post your comments

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Citizen Jack

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading