Delays in testing and spikes in cases are preventing contact tracking in some states: Shot

People are waiting in line outside a test site in Florida. Coronavirus cases have risen more than ever in the state in the last few weeks.

Lynn Sweet / AP

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Lynn Sweet / AP

People are waiting in line outside a test site in Florida. Coronavirus cases have risen more than ever in the state in the last few weeks.

Lynn Sweet / AP

Public health professionals had high expectations for the United States when the coronavirus pandemic began. After all, the United States literally invented the tactics that have been used to counter outbreaks around the world for decades. Quickly identify everyone infected. Track everyone exposed to the virus. Test everyone It isolates the disease and isolates the exposed virus to prevent the spread of the virus.

Wealthy nations like the United States wanted to deploy those proven measures to contain the virus rapidly-quickly extinguish all embers from the campfire to prevent a forest fire from erupting. ..

Today, that hope has disappeared. It’s not fire. Public health leaders are moving to more restrictive closures of businesses and public meetings in many places in order to reduce the number of cases so that epidemic embers can be extinguished using’test, trace, quarantine’. It is very likely that the return of will be necessary.

“Now we are experiencing COVID’s national forest fires, which immediately consumes human trees that can burn.”
Michael Osterholm, Director of Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota.

Testing, contact tracking, and quarantine are tactics that have been successfully used to control outbreaks in countries such as South Korea and Germany. However, those locations have never seen a surge in incidents at the level that many US states are currently experiencing.

“If this is happening, traditional testing and tracing will never have any meaningful impact,” says Osterholm. “I like to try to plant a petunia in the middle of a Category 5 hurricane.”

Others agree. At this point, too many new infections are premature to be effectively used by the public health sector, which lacks funds and personnel. test And Contract trackingAccording to Dr. Jeffrey Engel, senior COVID-19 responsive counselor for parliamentarians and territorial epidemiology,

“It’s just this massive effort,” he says. “It’s not possible,” he said.

This was especially true because of the long delay in getting the coronavirus test results. It can now take days or even weeks due to the surge in demand for testing. By that time, any infected person would have already been able to spread the virus to others.

“I think it’s the right reaction when there’s a near-controlled epidemic and we’re trying to wipe out the spill, but we’re not in most places,” Harvard Public University Epidemiology said. Prof. Marc Lipsitch Health. “In many places, I think we are engaged in collective hopeful thinking.”

Another problem is that test results in the United States often do not contain the basic information needed to find a person with a positive test, such as a phone number or address. And even if public health workers can find infected people in time, it’s often difficult to convince quarantines of their contact, Engel said.

“It’s voluntary, and they have other things to do,” Engel says. “They may be essential workers. They may need to get a job. Life takes over.”

So what if testing, contact tracking, isolation, and quarantine do not work?

Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said:

Currently, Nuzzo does not believe that all hope has been lost. Avoiding new shutdowns in at least some places, even if enough people have finally begun to wear masks and are wary of others, especially more than 6 feet away from indoors She may still have hope.

“I’m really worried about forcing the entire state or country to retreat home for a long time. These are harmful measures in their own right,” says Nuzzo.

Others say that there may still be places where testing and contact tracking are effectively done because the virus has not yet spread or is not kept low enough.

“Hawaii!” I wrote Katelyn Rivers of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in an email to NPR. “But they have the advantage of being islands.”

Massachusetts has also created an effective public health workforce, she notes.

Others may not want to be as strict as it was for the first time, where a new shutdown cannot be avoided. For example, outdoor spaces such as parks, playgrounds, and beaches can be left open as long as people wear masks and maintain a physical distance of 6 feet from non-family members.

“We knew in the spring about the virus and how it spreads now,” River says. “I mean, in a jurisdiction that recedes towards closure, I don’t think it should look like spring,” he said.

Other scientists have proposed it I was able to avoid lockdown If 95% of the U.S. population consistently wears masks in public. However, current mask usage is much lower. And some public health professionals suspect that a mask alone is sufficient.

“Unfortunately, the degree to which masking reduces transmission has been greatly exaggerated by many,” Osterholm argues. He points to Hong Kong, where masking is widespread but has a big surge.

“Use masks. These are complementary parts of our response, but they’re not going to reach the level at which we can control this virus,” says Osterholm.

According to experts, this means that neither testing nor contact tracking help. Far from it. Indeed, experts say it wants it to continue and expand. It can be used strategically to determine how to more selectively target shutdowns in situations and places where the virus is most prevalent. For example, Certain bars where people often infect each other You can identify and close it.

Osterholm expects more measured lockdowns to work in some places. But he’s especially skeptical of the hottest hotspots.

“If we want to be like any other country in the world that has successfully contained the virus, we have to take the drug now,” says Osterholm.

“We won’t get there unless we lower the level of this virus again, and there is literally no other way to do it, but it’s a kind of second lockdown,” he says. “And now let’s do it right.”

It may knock the virus on, reopen the school safely, bring some people back to work, and finally give the public time to get enough tests and hire enough contact tracers as they wish. It could help the United States disembark from the surge of current roller coasters in the affair and regain it as at least some version of normality.

“These countries According to Osterholm, the fire broke out last spring and the lockdown followed, and it was successfully resumed. “Their economies are recovering, they are enjoying their lives-and they remain in control of the virus.”