It’s the Testing

COVID-19 Research
Testing for Pandemics

What’s Inside
Research Basis
Findings

We need testing now and more extensively in the future
The Federal government has not accepted the need for testing. It has fallen to the private sector and institutions to pursue this goal.
What can be done now and what may be possible in the future is very different.
Right now, we only find out about an infected person when it is too late, they have already become part of the problem. Even worse, we do not know the prevalence of asymptomatic people, who will also continue to spread of the C19 virus.
Until we can monitor the contagion we will never be able to mitigate its impact.

Realities

We have an effective test for the symptoms of C-19, taking peoples temperatures, and various organizations are pursuing effective and inexpensive tests for the virus itself.

Findings

Testing is needed to find infected people early.
Today, we only discover people who are symptomatic after they have been infectious for days or, for asymptomatic people, for weeks.
The Federal government has said widespread testing is not needed, that it is too expensive, and it is just too hard to do. Basically, they have given up.
Widespread testing for symptoms of C19 is available today, widespread tests for the virus itself an be expected in the near future:
- A high temperature is symptomatic of the disease. Temperatures can be taken with touchless thermometers, or crowds can be scanned using technology available today.
  COVID-19: Screening Employee Temperatures, Wilmer Hall.
- Various organizations have made rapid progress in developing tests for the virus including testing for anti-bodies, antigens, and DNA.
- Until we can test, track and trace the contagion we will never be able to mitigate its impact.
  How to Test Everyone, MIT Technology Review
- Until 60% of the population has been infected when we will reach Herd Immunity, will the infections slow. Right now less than 1% of the population has been infected with 100,000 dead.