[BostonCard]

And I'll close with this. My sister works in a medical office. She shows no symptoms, but a co-worker showed up sick to work this week and yesterday tested positive. My sister shares a house with her husband and two daughters. She got tested today. Now she has to wait 3 days to get results. There are so many ways I can make a case about the inadequacy of testing and specifically for asymptomatic infected testing, but I won't. I just have to brace for the possibility my sister and her whole family are gonna get Covid-19. And I KNOW inadequate testing will be a primary reason it happened if it does.

There are soooo many screw-ups here that have nothing to do with testing.  What the hell is someone who works in a medical office doing showing up sick in the age of COVID-19.  Like, whoever runs that office should have made it crystal clear that no one is to come in sick, and should have sent your sister's sick co-worker home immediately.  That still wouldn't have protected from asymptomatic transmission, but what the hell is the point of doing asymptomatic testing if people are going to go to work with symptoms!  Obviously, this is a good time to plug mandatory sick leave; in the long run, most companies actually have less absenteeism because of the reduction of work-related transmissions.

Secondly, upon exposure to a known COVID-19 case, your sister should have isolated herself from everyone else in the household, regardless of testing.  This would have protected the rest of her household.  Remember, testing gives you a snapshot in time; it's really useful to encourage isolation if positive, but just because it is negative today doesn't mean it won't turn positive tomorrow or the next day, so barring serial quick tests, it is no substitute for isolation.

Lack of testing would not be the primary reason your sister's family would all get COVID-19.  Number one was a co-worker who went to work despite COVID-19 symptoms, and number 2 would be failure to isolate.  Real time information is helpful (and certainly is useful for driving policy and tracing cases), but is no substitute for basic public health measures 

BC

[BostonCard]

And I'll close with this. My sister works in a medical office. She shows no symptoms, but a co-worker showed up sick to work this week and yesterday tested positive. My sister shares a house with her husband and two daughters. She got tested today. Now she has to wait 3 days to get results. There are so many ways I can make a case about the inadequacy of testing and specifically for asymptomatic infected testing, but I won't. I just have to brace for the possibility my sister and her whole family are gonna get Covid-19. And I KNOW inadequate testing will be a primary reason it happened if it does.

There are soooo many screw-ups here that have nothing to do with testing.  What the hell is someone who works in a medical office doing showing up sick in the age of COVID-19.  Like, whoever runs that office should have made it crystal clear that no one is to come in sick, and should have sent your sister's sick co-worker home immediately.  That still wouldn't have protected from asymptomatic transmission, but what the hell is the point of doing asymptomatic testing if people are going to go to work with symptoms!  Obviously, this is a good time to plug mandatory sick leave; in the long run, most companies actually have less absenteeism because of the reduction of work-related transmissions.

Secondly, upon exposure to a known COVID-19 case, your sister should have isolated herself from everyone else in the household, regardless of testing.  This would have protected the rest of her household.  Remember, testing gives you a snapshot in time; it's really useful to encourage isolation if positive, but just because it is negative today doesn't mean it won't turn positive tomorrow or the next day, so barring serial quick tests, it is no substitute for isolation.

Lack of testing would not be the primary reason your sister's family would all get COVID-19.  Number one was a co-worker who went to work despite COVID-19 symptoms, and number 2 would be failure to isolate.  Real time information is helpful (and certainly is useful for driving policy and tracing cases), but is no substitute for basic public health measures 

BC