If you have a factory capable putting out 350M tests/day (let's not even get in to logistics or the next steps), please hang out your shingle.
If not, then perhaps considering plans within the realm of possibility is a better use of time.
If you have a factory capable putting out 350M tests/day (let's not even get in to logistics or the next steps), please hang out your shingle.
If not, then perhaps considering plans within the realm of possibility is a better use of time.
From the above mentioned TWiV podcast[1]:
"Take every manufacturing company that knows how to print paper, adapt their tools to print monoclonal antibodies on to those sheets and just start slicing it up and shipping it out. It's as easy as that, I mean, you know, I'm simplifying it a bit, but..."
And, as the host of TWiV said in an earlier podcast[2]:
"It's not undoable. If this were World War 2, you would figure out a way to do it! This is war. This is World War C19. I don't accept excuses. I got a letter from a laboratory person who said 'You have no idea what it takes to develop and execute a test, how many people, how much this and how much that..' and I said 'You're missing the point. You gotta try. You can't say why you can't do it. This is war. Let's do it!"
In fact, I believe he's actually understating the point. This disease has the potential to kill more Americans than died in all of the wars its ever been in combined, if it hasn't already. The stakes are enormous.
Let's get it done.
[1] - from about 32 minutes in to podcast 640 - https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/
[2] - from about 1 hour, 47 minutes in to podcast 638 - https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-638/
Op ed: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/opinion/coronavirus-tests...
This isn’t like PCR testing. It’s closer to insulin testing, in terms of the expense and difficulty of creation of the tests (and the means of interpreting the results). 350M is well within the range of possibility.
And the reward to having a reopened economy and significantly reduced death toll could justify very large investment.