Opinion: The White House coronavirus outbreak shows that testing alone is not enough
Per protocol, attendees were tested before they got near the president. But other defenses were down. According to:"After guests tested negative that day they were instructed they no longer needed to cover their faces. The no-mask mantra applied indoors as well. Cabinet members, senators, Barrett family members and others mixed unencumbered at tightly packed, indoor receptions.” No masks, no distancing and time spent among crowds indoors are a recipe for transmission.
All of this underscores the central flaw in the White House’s approach: Testing alone is not enough. Guarding against covid-19 requires a layered defense. Don’t take this to mean testing is bad. Testing is a valuable and important tool, useful for screening and for detecting cases before they explode into a massive outbreak. On the former, the White House failed by using testing as a prevention measure without additional measures. With respect to detection, recent testing has prevented the president and others from continuing to spread the virus beyond the initial damage.It’s only when testing is used in isolation that problems can ensue.
So why take a single-strategy approach against the virus? As good as testing has gotten, it still is not perfect. False negatives are a known risk. The U.S. military would not rely on a radar system that is 99 percent accurate without having backups. Multiple layers are core to safeguarding valuable assets — human and otherwise.
Why weren’t redundancies built into the White House strategy to guard against a virus that has already taken the lives of more than
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White House: Trump Heading To Walter Reed HospitalI’m a San Francisco-based reporter covering breaking news at Forbes. I’ve previously reported for USA Today, Business Insider, The San Francisco Business Times and San Jose Inside. I studied journalism at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and was an editor at The Daily Orange, the university’s independent student newspaper. Follow me on Twitter rachsandl or shoot me an email rsandlerforbes.com.
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