Riding The COVID19 Storm Out With A Little Help From A Friend! Why do I call testing to date a failure? We are now 3 months into the pandemic and have just tested about 1% of the US population. 18% of those tested are virus positive with the in lab nasal or oral swab test. The one day total of newly diagnosed patients has gone from 3419 each day on 3/18 to 30,000 each day on 4/18. This is the highest rate of newly diagnosed to date. Testing has gone from around 15,000 a day to 167,000 tests daily. So at the current rate it will take another 63 Months to test the entire US population with the nasal swab test. We have a total of 43 FDA approved viral tests for COVID19. We MUST pick up the pace or far more people will die! The current system is slow and cumbersome, swabs are taken, sent to a lab and maybe just maybe you will get results in a week or two. Drive up testing was intituted in Jacksonville, FL but had only the capacity to complete 250 to 400 per day with the same wait. The present system and methods are overloaded and way over capacity. So what is the problem? I believe it is "Logistics Stupid!" My life has been in the field of operation engineering, distribution operations management, and supply chain management, and I am shocked and amazed at this supply chain management fiasco.
We have heard a lot about antibody testing from Dr. Fauci and Governor Cuomo. This antibody test will determine if we have or have had COVID19. It is their belief and many other people as well, that to open up the economy we need to have extensive testing with the cornerstone to be the antibody blood test. You would think the task force would have learned from the mistakes from the nasal swab testing nightmare. What would an expert in Supply Chain management do?
-Make the process easy for the most likely at risk. The old, feeble, those with cancer, asthma, pulmonary, respiratory, immune sensitivity, African Americans, those with commodities, and those in cities which rely on public transportation. Who wants to get on a bus, subway, or elevator in New York or any big city?
-Find a way for those who are most at risk and need to shelter in place to get tested given these limitations. These groups have been told to stay away from hospitals, labs, grocery stores, and drug stores and stay 6 feet away from anyone.
So if there was any learning from mistakes of the flawed implementation of the nasal COVID19 test, we would expect to see a major shift in implementation for the antibody test. BUT NADA, in fact it is far worse. We only have 3 tests approved by the FDA for the antibody test for COVID19. Two of which were approved on 4/16/20. Johns Hopkins has a list of 39 tests which are under investigation but yet to be approved. CLICK HERE for list. The three approved tests are only approved for use by a lab, vs the swab test which has 43 approved for lab use. Let me ask a question. If 43 tests for use in lab only a shows such poor results, why would we expect one with just 3 tests for use only in a lab to be anything other than a disaster 14 times greater? Denmark has tested 9 tests for accuracy and the Zuckerburg Chan Initiative (Facebook) set up a lab in 8 days and will test all current antibody tests with results scheduled for completion in a WEEK!
We could learn a lot from the German approach! Germany has one of the lowest death rates for COVID19 in the world, developed and is manufacturing its own antibody tests, and is conducting nationwide testing for COVID-19 antibodies, the first European country to do so. CLICK HERE Germany has conducts nearly 4 times the tests per day per 100,000 population than the USA.
A SOLUTION
Send nasal swabs or antibody test kits to the peoples' homes at the GP's request. Amazon, UPS, FedX(totaling 10's of Billions of packages each year)
With nasal viral test, have the doctor supervise the at home swab procedure by telehealth. Send into the lab for results. GP calls the patient with results.
For antibody test send it to the patient, have a telehealth visit with your GP to supervise the test and take a screen shot of the finished test and provide the data right then to the patient.
You can learn from the Myeloma Crowd(CLICK HERE) who is looking to use the antibody test to obtain data on why some myeloma patients have better outcomes when infected by COVID19, We have some centers who have had 20 to 40 COVID19 positive patients and no deaths and others which have shown 30% or greater death rates. They will use this SOLUTION to insure these very high risk patients get tested. Myeloma Crowd has found a way to meet the needs of an Ultimate Risk group. To all who are working on the Resurrection of the Country, please use the Myeloma Crowd example of how to provide telehealth and retail logistics to this healthcare problem!
Good Luck and May God Provide us with the guidance and leadership to weather this storm!
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