Coronavirus Testing - Why There Are Still Shortages ... there aren't any?

NPR - Man In Charge Of Coronavirus Testing In The U.S. On Why There Are Still Shortages

I heard an NPR interview yesterday of Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, about coronavirus testing and vaccine distribution.

And while it was understandablely adversarial it was bizarre how the NPR anchor kept refusing to accept what she was being told with out offering any counter information. She just kept asking "Why", like a child, her impossible demands could not be met.

Caronavirus is a serious issue; if the government is lying to us we need to know about it. But we never will if our journalists just sit behind their desks like amateur bloggers.

They are back - cars queued up as far as the eye can see, people queued up waiting for hours, reports of shortages of key supplies like swabs and pipettes, reports of long waits for results. I'm talking about horror story headlines of coronavirus testing - headlines we hoped we had put behind us this past spring and summer.

NPR: Why does demand still outpace supply eight months into this pandemic?

GIROIR: Demand does not outpace supply. In fact, we're doing over 1.5 million tests per day.

NPR: I'll point to those lines I just described.

GIROIR: OK. So when you have people who believe they need to be tested - millions of people so they can go on vacation, holiday - the system does not support that. We are absolutely able to support the testing of those who are symptomatic to all the contacts they have, to test asymptomatic individuals across the country in an unprecedented way. We have all of that. 

NPR: But I have been interviewing those same public health officials for months and months and months now. They argue that, you know, to put this pandemic behind us, to keep the country and the economy safely reopened, you need to be doing tens of millions of tests every day. What is preventing us from doing that?

GIROIR: That is a physical impossibility. We do not...

NPR: Why?

GIROIR: Why - is that - sort of an existential question, right? You know, why can't people fly? Why can't these things happen? I mean, we have invested every single dollar that's possible into increasing the testing infrastructure.

NPR: I wanted to ask you about that because that's a piece of news this week. The FDA just authorized the first test people can use themselves at home and get results right away, but it's 50 bucks a pop, and the supply is really limited.

GIROIR: It's very limited.

NPR: Do you have any idea when that will be more widely available and more affordable?

GIROIR: That particular technology is probably not going to be widely available, nor is it going to be more affordable because it's in a form that is not going to be affordable. It's expensive to make it.

NPR: We just have a minute or so left. And I just want to get to this - the basic question that I can't get off my mind. This is a country that sent people to the moon decades ago. This is a country that in the same eight months, two pharmaceutical companies have come up with a vaccine that they say is 95% effective. Why can't we get testing out there in the supplies that would allow everybody who wants a test to get a test?

GIROIR: So we've been investing in the manufacturing of these vaccines for about 20 years to get us to the point in time that you have an eight-month start...

NPR: Right.

GIROIR: ...And can get something going. There was not a single swab in the stockpile. There was no manufacturing chain. There was no industrial base. There was not a single diagnostic in the stockpile, no manufacturing chain, no industrial base. So this is truly a standing start. This is the equivalent...

NPR: I'm sorry to cut you off.

GIROIR: Yeah, go ahead.

NPR: I know you're running fast, and we wish you luck.

a reply to: DanDanDat

Why did Elon Musk Tests Positive And Negative for COVID-19?

a reply to: DanDanDat

I have a couple of employees who have been exposed recently. They have been told the wait for testing at the drive throughs is now almost 2 weeks out.

By the time you can get a test, it is a bit late for early treatment unless you go to the hospital.

Some the employers are also requiring proof of a negative test to come back to work if you are sent home sick due to a health check in.

originally posted by: DanDanDat
NPR - Man In Charge Of Coronavirus Testing In The U.S. On Why There Are Still Shortages

I heard an NPR interview yesterday of Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, about coronavirus testing and vaccine distribution.

And while it was understandablely adversarial it was bizarre how the NPR anchor kept refusing to accept what she was being told with out offering any counter information. She just kept asking "Why", like a child, her impossible demands could not be met.

Caronavirus is a serious issue; if the government is lying to us we need to know about it. But we never will if our journalists just sit behind their desks like amateur bloggers.

They are back - cars queued up as far as the eye can see, people queued up waiting for hours, reports of shortages of key supplies like swabs and pipettes, reports of long waits for results. I'm talking about horror story headlines of coronavirus testing - headlines we hoped we had put behind us this past spring and summer.

NPR: Why does demand still outpace supply eight months into this pandemic?

GIROIR: Demand does not outpace supply. In fact, we're doing over 1.5 million tests per day.

NPR: I'll point to those lines I just described.

GIROIR: OK. So when you have people who believe they need to be tested - millions of people so they can go on vacation, holiday - the system does not support that. We are absolutely able to support the testing of those who are symptomatic to all the contacts they have, to test asymptomatic individuals across the country in an unprecedented way. We have all of that. 

NPR: But I have been interviewing those same public health officials for months and months and months now. They argue that, you know, to put this pandemic behind us, to keep the country and the economy safely reopened, you need to be doing tens of millions of tests every day. What is preventing us from doing that?

GIROIR: That is a physical impossibility. We do not...

NPR: Why?

GIROIR: Why - is that - sort of an existential question, right? You know, why can't people fly? Why can't these things happen? I mean, we have invested every single dollar that's possible into increasing the testing infrastructure.

NPR: I wanted to ask you about that because that's a piece of news this week. The FDA just authorized the first test people can use themselves at home and get results right away, but it's 50 bucks a pop, and the supply is really limited.

GIROIR: It's very limited.

NPR: Do you have any idea when that will be more widely available and more affordable?

GIROIR: That particular technology is probably not going to be widely available, nor is it going to be more affordable because it's in a form that is not going to be affordable. It's expensive to make it.

NPR: We just have a minute or so left. And I just want to get to this - the basic question that I can't get off my mind. This is a country that sent people to the moon decades ago. This is a country that in the same eight months, two pharmaceutical companies have come up with a vaccine that they say is 95% effective. Why can't we get testing out there in the supplies that would allow everybody who wants a test to get a test?

GIROIR: So we've been investing in the manufacturing of these vaccines for about 20 years to get us to the point in time that you have an eight-month start...

NPR: Right.

GIROIR: ...And can get something going. There was not a single swab in the stockpile. There was no manufacturing chain. There was no industrial base. There was not a single diagnostic in the stockpile, no manufacturing chain, no industrial base. So this is truly a standing start. This is the equivalent...

NPR: I'm sorry to cut you off.

GIROIR: Yeah, go ahead.

NPR: I know you're running fast, and we wish you luck.

Frankly, I think you’re courageous for listening to NPR.

Minnesota is offering free at-home tests but when I tried to order one it is available to only certain counties (which I am not in). So can't say how widely available it actually is.

No-cost Covid Testing

I know people who have gone for testing multiple times, all negative. They go out and do stupid stuff then go to get tested once they find others at the event tested positive. I go to the store a few times a week, wear a mask, and try to stay away from big gatherings when you know someone may have it there. But these people who act so concerned and try to avoid going to the store, go to wedding receptions and big funeral wakes or go to the casino for many hours and complain about people going to church....when in the churches here, they have online sermons now and maybe twenty five people will be spread out over the church social distancing. No risk at all hardly going here to church.

Why are we doing all of this testing, people think they need a test if they are ten feet away from someone who has it so they go for the free test. If they had to pay even ten bucks out of their pocket, they would not get a test unless they had symptoms.

There are lines at some test sites around us but there are definitely no test shortages. It's a lack of sites, not a lack of tests here.

There was not a single swab in the stockpile. There was no manufacturing chain. There was no industrial base. There was not a single diagnostic in the stockpile, no manufacturing chain, no industrial base. So this is truly a standing start.

a reply to: DanDanDat

They said lock down. Flatten the curve.

It was a scary new cold virus and we didn't have tests, vaccines, medical procedures or data to fight it.

Now they want to know why...

originally posted by: MorpheusUSA
a reply to: DanDanDat

Why did Elon Musk Tests Positive And Negative for COVID-19?

Because he decided to use a test that has a high false negative rate. He didn’t know that, which is why he thought something was bogus. Once that was explained to him by a doctor, he understood and accepted the explanation.

originally posted by: DanDanDat

Caronavirus is a serious issue; if the government is lying to us we need to know about it. But we never will if our journalists just sit behind their desks like amateur bloggers.

To state the obvious ...

There is a difference between journalists and news entertainers. Journalists seek the truth. The entertainers are there to influence you. They want you to believe certain things, and dismiss other things.

What this entertainer has done is plant a seed.

Suppose, instead of lockdowns, social distancing, masks, etc., what if there was a way to say, "You don't have the virus, you can go into this business." Well, you can't take someone's word that they are virus free. You'd have to either accept some certification or test them on the spot.

As the man pointed out, it would be physically impossible to manufacture and distribute enough test kits across the country.

If only there was some way you could tell whether or not a person has the virus on the spot. Maybe a tattoo that changes color, maybe a personal, virus detecting microchip ...

a reply to: DanDanDat

if the government is lying to us we need to know about it.

But they are lying. And the media are in on it too. They don't want you to know.

Portuguese Court Rules PCR Tests “Unreliable” & Quarantines “Unlawful”

The media reaction to this case has been entirely predictable – they have not mentioned it. At all. Anywhere. Ever.

The ruling was published on November 11th, and has been referenced by many alt-news sites since…but the mainstream outlets are maintaining a complete blackout on it.

I posted a similar response in another thread here, but thought it applied here as well.

I am sick of dense and uniformed people with no real hands-on experience with this bug. They have no #@$@#$ clue what it takes to run these tests. It's $#%#$% easy to declare " we should all be tested" and have no clue what it takes to do that, or even the capacity that is being demanded of those working to meet that unrealistic demand.

In addition, what it takes to protect yourself from it at all while doing those tests. It's not #@$%#@$ magic folks. Real people run these tests. My wife WORKS WITH THIS BUG EVERY DAY in a hospital microbiology lab running the covid-19 tests. She wears full body (and properly fitted) PPE in a negative pressure BL2 room to open the samples and transfer them to the plates to put into the testing machines. Only that type of protection will help prevent you from getting it (so far over 8 months now at least). I worry for my wife every.....single....day.... She came home just today, wiped out and crying trying to keep up with this mad rush for testing being pushed. She did over 300 tests today, herself. And it happens every day on 3-shifts.

So this myopic NPR douche-weasel can volunteer to work in a lab and see for themselves the toll it takes on those trying to do the work they so easily ask for without any demands upon them but fear.

If your sick and go to the hospital without a fever they won't even test you for Covid. That tells me its not that big a deal. There is a bunch of BS surrounding this Covid-19.
Its about causing panic and hysteria and taking even more freedoms from people including your freedom not to wear a mask. Your freedom to gather together, to have Thanksgiving and Christmas, your freedom to move around freely from state to state.

If they mandate masks worldwide when will they ever unmandate them?
The government does not have a history of giving back freedoms it takes away.
They care about no one but themselves and their riches.

originally posted by: myselfaswell
But they are lying. And the media are in on it too. They don't want you to know.

Yep. I would strongly encourage anyone to 'look' at what was known about the whole family of corona viruses, say, prior to 2016.

The 'reactions' at state and federal levels seem to be very closely tied to what's going on in American Policy and American Politics.

Fauci terrorized the world with the AIDS epidemic (hear very much about that these days? has the world's population been in decline because off it?). He was the perfect/practiced guy to do this again with the WuFlu virus.

I love that Elon Musk was administered the COVID-19 test four times back-to-back ... two positives and two negatives.

As an avowed CT, I strongly suspect the original test swabs were intentionally infected with COVID-19, to really get it spreading everywhere, ... and panic the nation bad enough to shut down the roaring economy President Trump built.

a reply to: Krakatoa

So, if people followed recommendations (mask, clean hands, 6’, isolation), it would relieve the testing “crunch”.

Basically, that’s what I was told in the beginning.

It wasn’t about protecting me so much, it was about not overwhelming the hospitals, nurses, doctors, and testers.

Keeping the numbers under control, to give time to handle the pandemic and develop a vaccine.

a reply to: Snarl

Robert David Steele said it best...

"I think we've all been had, I ran a false flag for the CIA, this WAS a false flag..." ~ Robert David Steele

"WHO faked a Level 6 ‘pandemic’ in 2009 – the data to support the Level 6 pandemic was fabricated" ~ Professor Michel Chossudovsky, former employee of the WHO anticorruptionsociety.com...

In August 2009 Professor Michel Chossudovsky, former employee of the WHO exposed the dysfunction and corruption that occurred at the World Health Organization during the so-called H1N1 pandemic and flu shot campaign. Here is the interview he gave on Rense Radio: Aug 3, 2009 interview

Some of the facts he disclosed:

• The World Health Organization is a political body not a health organization
• Countries that are members are obligated under treaty to institute policy on a national level
• Big Pharma corporations ‘advise’ the WHO

Chossudovsky’s investigation of the H1N1 pandemic revealed that:

• WHO faked a Level 6 ‘pandemic’ in 2009 – the data to support the Level 6 pandemic was fabricated
• WHO discouraged independent testing for H1N1
• WHO Exaggerated # of occurrences and/or deaths
• Main stream media reported unsubstantiated information
• The fabrication of a pretext to vaccinate the population was very profitable

anticorruptionsociety.com...

While they raise the greatest alarm for the coronavirus, they hide the fact that seasonal flu, a much more deadly epidemic, has caused in Italy during the 6th week of 2020 – according to the Higher Institute of Health – an average of 217 deaths per day, also due to pulmonary and cardiovascular complications related to the flu. They hide the fact that -according to the World Health Organization- more than 700 people die in Italy in one year from HIV/Aids (an average of two a day), out of a world total of about 770,000.

Regarding the alarmist campaign on the coronavirus, Maria Rita Gismondo – director of clinical macrobiology, virology and bio-emergency diagnostics at the laboratory of the Sacco Hospital in Milan, where samples of possible contagions are analyzed – says: “It’s madness. We’ve turned an infection that is little more serious than influenza into a lethal pandemic. Look at the numbers. It’s not a pandemic”.

The Fear Virus Pandemic. “Fake News”? “Look at the Numbers. It’s not a Pandemic”

"The medical cartel, at the highest level, is not out to help people, it is out to harm them, to weaken them. To kill them. At one point in my career, I had a long conversation with a man who occupied a high government position in an African nation. He told me that he was well aware of this. He told me that WHO is a front for these depopulation interests."

The Medical Mafia

a reply to: Murgatroid

The healthcare "industry" is all about making the monies. How do they profit if you're not sick? Dying?

originally posted by: Krakatoa
I posted a similar response in another thread here, but thought it applied here as well.

I am sick of dense and uniformed people with no real hands-on experience with this bug. They have no #@$@#$ clue what it takes to run these tests. It's $#%#$% easy to declare " we should all be tested" and have no clue what it takes to do that, or even the capacity that is being demanded of those working to meet that unrealistic demand.

In addition, what it takes to protect yourself from it at all while doing those tests. It's not #@$%#@$ magic folks. Real people run these tests. My wife WORKS WITH THIS BUG EVERY DAY in a hospital microbiology lab running the covid-19 tests. She wears full body (and properly fitted) PPE in a negative pressure BL2 room to open the samples and transfer them to the plates to put into the testing machines. Only that type of protection will help prevent you from getting it (so far over 8 months now at least). I worry for my wife every.....single....day.... She came home just today, wiped out and crying trying to keep up with this mad rush for testing being pushed. She did over 300 tests today, herself. And it happens every day on 3-shifts.

So this myopic NPR douche-weasel can volunteer to work in a lab and see for themselves the toll it takes on those trying to do the work they so easily ask for without any demands upon them but fear.

Thank you for the real world example.

originally posted by: Annee
a reply to: Krakatoa

So, if people followed recommendations (mask, clean hands, 6’, isolation), it would relieve the testing “crunch”.

It seems to me if people would actually put the testing into the proper prospective it would also relieve the testing “crunch”.

I know its just an anecdote; I have an aquantiance who lives in San Francisco. He and his partner through party's on the weekend and require their guests to have a negative covid test three days prior to the party.

How much of this non essential testing is going on?