Posted on March 15, 2020 at 12:16 pm by Carol Tannenhauser



Photo of a model of COVID-19 via CDC.

By Carol Tannenhauser

“The three most important parts of the bill are testing, testing, testing,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, in a press conference following the passage of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act by the U.S. House of Representatives, on Friday, March 13th. “We can only defeat this outbreak if we have an accurate determination of its scale and scope so we can pursue the precise, science-based response that is necessary.”

“Without testing, we’re flying blind,” FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler agreed, in an NPR interview on March 14th. “We don’t have an antiviral to slow the epidemic. We don’t have a vaccine. All we have is to take people who have the virus and isolate them, to quarantine them. But that entire system is — if you look at the CDC guidance, it says to isolate, to quarantine confirmed cases. But how can you know whether someone is a confirmed case without a test?“

Local City Councilmember Mark Levine (at right), chair of the Council’s committee on health, thinks the time for large-scale testing in New York City has passed. The day the House bill was announced, he issued a strong warning against calls from elected officials for large-scale Coronavirus testing here, because of the “evolution” of the NYC outbreak.

“There was a time when we needed to test as many people as possible to identify, trace, and contain individual cases,” Levine said. “Now in places like New York City, where we see increasing ‘community spread,’ we are in an entirely new phase of the crisis and the time for blanket testing for the virus is over. We are staring in the face of an epic overrunning of our health-care system and we need to preserve every element of our system for people who are acutely ill,” Levine explained. “If every person who feels ill or thinks they were exposed to someone with COVID-19 (the disease caused by the Coronavirus) tries to get a test, it will push our health-care system to the breaking point.”

And it serves no purpose, Levine emphasized. “Individuals…need to realize that this information has zero practical implications for their course of treatment because there is no unique treatment for COVID-19. We are in a whole new world of testing. We are in the triage stage. Public officials need to stop misleading the public on the value of city-wide testing. At this point, testing — and the staff, facilities, and resources around it — needs to be reserved for the acutely sick. Everyone who is mildly sick needs to stay home and self-cure.”

“Councilmember Levine makes an intelligent point,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and a professor at the school of public health. “In some ways we’ve gone beyond the utility of mass screening, with a caveat that contact tracing in some circumstances might still be appropriate.

“At this point, New York City needs to focus on preparing for what might be an overwhelming crisis that may well paralyze our health-care system,” he said. “I also know that New York City is working around the clock to make sure our health care system, already one of the best in the United States, is as prepared as it can be to deal with whatever we face in the weeks and months ahead.”