Dr Desai, you are a former epidemic intelligence service officer which leads me to believe that you need data to do what you do. I understand that in an epidemic not 100 % of people need to be tested, but again when I’ve studied what has happened in TB. In this country it was about intelligence. Tb was defeated by intelligence by knowing who had it, who they were with who they were around and then treating them for it. What can be gained by not having enough testing and what is the right amount of testing? What percentage of the population needs to be tested? How do we know who to believe about testing so just to be clear when you have testing available and it’s rapid testing and you think it’s reliable testing? You want to use that testing as broadly as possible among people that you think might have coded 19 to day. I would say almost everyone in America might have coded 19, and so, if we can do blanket testing, that would be fantastic and there’re certain cities and counties that are trying that approach. The other piece of this is that testing falls into two categories. There’S looking for the viral RNA rt-pcr, which is the the Abbott lab image that you just showed, there’s also serology testing and I think one of the beautiful things that we will likely take more and more advantage of overtime is serologic testing to see who had coded 19 and who is now immune to probe in 19 of those types of testing, are absolutely crucial and necessary. Like you said in an epidemic like this one, you can’t go and fight an opponent, blindfolded
Dr. Rishi Desai: Testing Is Crucial To Fight COVID-19 | The Last Word | MSNBC
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