TESTING FOR COVID – 19 AND REOPENING THE ECONOMY:

WHY IS THERE SO MUCH CONFUSION?

WHY THE REOPENING OF BUSINESSES HAVE BECOME ENTWINED IN PARTISAN POLITICS?

In clinical medicine, testing is only a secondary tool to verify the clinical diagnosis. But if a patient is asymptomatic, as seen in many Coronavirus cases, testing becomes the only primary tool to diagnose the infection.

Under these circumstances, the diagnostic test has to be very specific and sensitive, readily available, reliable, easy to perform, quick and cheap enough so that millions of asymptomatic people could be tested and screened.  This would allow any positive but asymptomatic patients to know to be isolated.

However, we must ask the following - are the present tests in use for the diagnosis of COVID- 19 have the above mentioned qualities and quantities?

When we take a closer look, we clearly see that they don’t. They are only available in limited quantities. They are expensive and difficult to perform. Therefore, policy makers limit the testing only for symptomatic patients. But this policy defeats the purpose of testing. We already know symptomatic patients need to be isolated but the aim is to diagnose asymptomatic carriers, so that spreading of the infection could be prevented. By identifying and isolating asymptomatic carriers, this also establishes contact tracing guidelines for every positive case.

In the absence of widespread testing, it’s impossible to know where we stand in our fight against Coronavirus. Without knowing this, trying to open up the economy could backfire and could cause much more serious infections and death rates. This could easily be considered atrocity by many, because the elderly, disabled, sick, poor and minorities are much more vulnerable.

So, why is there so much confusion and hesitation about testing? Why has reopening the economy become so entwined in partisan politics instead of establishing scientific guidelines? 

I believe it comes from ignorance, ever changing misrepresentations by politicians to serve their own political purposes, partisan politics, keeping scientists and experts out of the loop and the presence of much fake information on social media. These factors create a deep distrust of government officials by the general public.

Let’s review what we know so far about testing and about infection preventing measures, in a short summary. At the present, there are two types of tests in use for the diagnosis of COVID- 19:

1. Swab Test:This test diagnoses the presence of virus or particle of virus on the swab material by using a gene – editing technology called PCR ( polymerase chain reaction ). Its recipe involved many steps and requires a centralized lab. Its results become known in about 3-to-7 days and is costly. So, it is not an ideal test to screen many people in a pandemic. Additionally, it has a significant rate of (up to 38 %) false negative results. It has to be repeated often.

2 . Blood Test: This test is not for diagnosing virus but for trying to find out whether or not there is the presence of neutralizing antibodies against the virus, which is considered a sign of old exposure and immunity. However, we don’t know how long this immunity lasts. This test also gives significantly high false positive or false negative test results.

Because of the shortcomings of all of these presently available tests, scientists all over the world are trying to find better methods of testing.  Already, there are many in the market and they are being tested in real world conditions for approval.

So far, evidence is mounting that face masks, if used in public places are far more effective at preventing transmission than previously realized. Its use must be made obligatory. Every crowd may have some silent carriers. Those who find some excuses not to wear a face mask are egocentric, they don’t give adamn about anybody else but their self image.

Additionally, open air and sun are better than sheltering at home. Sunrays kill the virus fast.

Social distancing rules also work very well and must be obeyed. 

Safer work places have to be designed for every business.

Only time will tell what would prevail if/when businesses are opened prematurely.  

In the meantime, let’s all believe in science and let only scientific facts guide us instead of politicians, especially those who practice medicine without a medical license.