A few of us, notably myself, early on, stressed the importance of testing, and testing everyone, not just those with symptoms, as a containment measure for Covid-19. This is based of the principle that to control a pandemic you must control the rate of infection. This requires awareness, masks for everyone, not just medical personnel, and near universal testing. In a pandemic where there are many asymptomatic but infectious people walking around, it is just as important to test the asymptomatic as it is those with symptoms.
Initially, in the U.S., because of insufficient testing capability and turn around time, only the symptomatic were tested. Also, a drastically insufficient inventory of masks was on hand, so citizens were advised not to wear masks to preserve the existing inventory for medical personnel. U.S. Citizens were being misinformed when they were told that Masks were not helpful. The U.S. slept while other countries were ramping up testing and mask inventory. When the virus hit the U.S., the nation was woefully unprepared, even though epidemiologists had issued more than ample warning.
"'The quick fielding of a widely available test gave South Korea a key advantage in fighting the spread of the disease', said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “They used the WHO test, so they had a test that was validated early on. Then, they made a simple decision: Test as many people as possible. They organized themselves to get specimens and then made sure they had a very high throughput in the labs.” -- see link below for further details.
Here is how South Korea was able to ramp up its testing capabilities and successfully contain the virus despite being at high risk.
https://www.propublica.org/article/...-testing-while-the-us-fell-dangerously-behind
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