[Newbiesaukee]

Just a few words about testing. I am not an expert in some of this, and welcome facts.

The test, as I understand it, is not a blood test such as would be used to measure past infection. It is also not a culture such as a throat or urine culture where the specimen is cultured on some sort of artificial media.

Rather the test is actually utilizing the genetic footprint of the virus itself from specimens in the back of the throat. I believe it uses viral RNA fragments.

The rest is a bit more of my opinion. IF the goal is to learn about how quickly the virus spreads, who it is likely to attack ,etc. That is, to learn about the actual behavior of the virus which is vital information, then the entire population needs to be tested. I believe Iceland is close to this, South Korea and a few other countries are also trying The larger the area, the better the result. But again, all should be tested in the ideal situation.

On the other hand, when should an individual be tested? This is the confusing issue. If “tests on demand” were available, no problem. But they are not, not enough test kits, not enough personnel, etc.

Using myself as an example, and I am in the older risk group, I am pretty much trying to avoid other people and have stocked my house. If I get fever, cough, or other symptoms I would just hang in there with the usual remedies. Only if my condition worsened with respect to serious breathing difficulties would I call my provider and ask where to go OR I would go directly to the hospital and they would triage me to decide if I needed to be admitted. A test would be helpful to rule out a treatable condition such as the flu. A positive test would alert other medical personnel to,protect themselves. But again, the test would have no use to me personally. In other words, in the present test availability, there is no reason for the average person to be tested. Not ideal and lots of exceptions....medical personnel, important people whose results would affect many others, etc.

in a sense, in the U.S. we just do not have the ability to test “on demand.” It did not have to be that way and when this is over, it should be investigated as to why we are in this situation. But that is for more calm, and hopefully, more deliberative times.