Hacker News Reader

Comment by heimidal | Hacker News Reader

They aren’t testing most people with symptoms. No way will they start testing random people without.

You're being really generous here. In most cases, we aren't even testing people who are symptomatic and whose BioFire panels come back negative, unless they also happen to have a travel history that includes an affected area overseas.

They have started testing people who had contact specifically with people who are known to be infected. So there is a chance.

In the same household maybe. I seriously doubt they are testing everyone who bought a coffee from an infected barista (as an example, I have no idea if such a case exists in the US).

They aren't doing much of anything really are they? I love that Denmark, with only 400-500 cases took the drastic approach of suspending schools, kindergartens and a lot of public and private people are going home: https://www.thelocal.dk/20200311/denmark-to-shut-all-schools...

US currently has 1/20th the number of cases as Denmark per unit population. Denmark is in the top five by this metric, and they aren't doing (up to now) any better a job than Italy at flattening the curve. The thinking probably goes, among people who think little but also get to decide, that it's not that big of a deal here in the US yet, and that further restriction and action would be unpopular. Or maybe the powers that be trust the invisible hand of the free market to solve the problem? It is true that many companies and other private organizations within the US are taking relatively drastic steps. Maybe the executive believes that municipalities and states will handle the issue, and that they will take the brunt of an unrest that results. But more is plainly needed lest we go the route that Italy has gone up til now.

Give it two weeks.

I think that is the only thing that is going to drive home the reality of what we're up against to the folks in charge. :( I for one am spending time in my backyard and in my house, and not many places else.

Even if the invisible hand of the free market could solve this, the government is keeping this hand tied by passing things like price gouging laws.

So not only are they not going to fix things themselves, they are going to actively stop the market from solving things.

Confirmed cases. We've also tested an order of magnitude less people per capita than Denmark

Only? That's more cases than the UK has. If you scale Denmark's 617 cases up to the US population, it's 36,000 cases equivalent. If you scale it to China, it'd be near 150,000. What's worthy of "only" about that? That's a shit show. A colossal failure, in the parlance currently being thrown at the US.

How about Norway currently? 43,000 equivalent.

How about Italy? 60,000 cases equivalent, with 5,500 deaths.

Switzerland? 25,000 equivalent.

Sweden? 20,000 equivalent.

But I understand, America bad. It's the same obnoxious theme in every thread on HN right now.

Europe's results - including Denmark - are not impressive at all. That's the actual situation.

Using the word equivalent when there is no equivalent testing, and you're not accounting for the difference in initial exposure times, is deceptive.

The lack of testing is admitted by the head of the NIH, multiple times, most recently today: The idea of anybody getting it easily, the way people in other countries are doing it, we're not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes. But we're not. That is a failing. It is a failing. Let's admit it. Dr. Anthony Fauci

You do not know what the actual situation is.

We can compare these numbers in (hopefully) 8-10 months, after we have better information about the first incidence in various places, and especially the rate of testing. Right now, even your attempted normalization for population is meaningless because effectively the only thing that we know about the state of play in different places is that it's different. We don't know in what ways (let alone why).

They can't can they? I thought the US has a shortage of tests and lacks capacity to process them as well.

I asked somebody today (union steward) and they suggested going to the hospital. If I decided I wanted to get tested, I think I would call my primary care doctor instead, or possibly an urgent care center and see what they said.

I assume nobody wants you to waltz right in, even or especially the ER.

Well, that's the point, isn't it? :/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com