“The system is not really geared to what we need right now,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci.
NEW YORK — Seven weeks have passed since the first U.S. case of coronavirus was announced, and the government is failing to account for what could be thousands of additional infections because of ongoing problems with testing.
U.S. health officials, for example, promised nearly a month ago to tap into a national network of labs that monitor for flu. That system is only just getting started. But some experts believe any number based on test results of individual patients is a dramatic undercount. Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles this week estimated that the true count of infections was close to 9,000 — about two weeks ago.
The testing process in the U.S. requires mixing various chemicals to setup chain reactions that extract genetic information from patients’ swabs. Each lab must fine-tune the process on its own equipment, something experts have likened to perfecting a new recipe. Azar said the government is working to set up a system to combine government testing figures with those of outside laboratories.
“Results from this surveillance would be an early warning signal, to trigger a change in our response strategy” if cases started appearing, she said.
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