[akiddoc]

"We were never really blind when it came to surveillance" for covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, CDC chief Robert Redfield said. Even if widespread diagnostic testing had been in place, it would have been like "looking for a needle in a haystack," he said.

This statement seems totally bogus to me. How can you detect community transmission if you only allow testing of people with known exposure? Case in point: the Feb. 6 death in SCC that was recently discovered to be due to Covid-19 and is now thought to be the earliest known example of community transmission within SCC. The County coroner who performed the autopsy on Feb. 7 suspected Covid-19 but was unable to test her for it because she didn't meet testing criteria. 

If widespread testing was in place every urgent care center and ER on the west coast would have been testing every patient with a cough back in February.

[akiddoc]

"We were never really blind when it came to surveillance" for covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, CDC chief Robert Redfield said. Even if widespread diagnostic testing had been in place, it would have been like "looking for a needle in a haystack," he said.

This statement seems totally bogus to me. How can you detect community transmission if you only allow testing of people with known exposure? Case in point: the Feb. 6 death in SCC that was recently discovered to be due to Covid-19 and is now thought to be the earliest known example of community transmission within SCC. The County coroner who performed the autopsy on Feb. 7 suspected Covid-19 but was unable to test her for it because she didn't meet testing criteria. 

If widespread testing was in place every urgent care center and ER on the west coast would have been testing every patient with a cough back in February.