US authorizes rapid test to detect covid-19 1:21
(CNN) - Recalling the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force said Monday that she wishes the United States had entered stricter lockdown.
"I wish when we went into lockdown (in March), we would have looked like Italy," said Dr. Deborah Birx on Monday. “When Italy closed, I mean, people were not allowed to leave their houses (without a pass). Americans don't react well to that kind of ban. "
In Italy, as the virus spread, residents were told to stay home and go out only for essential activities. The authorities would detain the people and verify that they had documents indicating where and why they were traveling.
At a panel discussion hosted by Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, Birx said he learned what Americans are willing to do to combat the virus and that officials should meet with people wherever they are.
Birx cited the strategy Arizona has used to reduce the growing number of cases. People were still able to go to shopping malls and restaurants with reduced capacity, but gyms and bars were closed, mask mandates were implemented, and gatherings of more than 10 people were banned.
"People were interacting, people were outside, but people, just by doing those things carefully, they were able to reduce cases significantly, probably more than 80%," Birx said.
That kind of behavior change is something all Americans can do, he said.
"Tens of thousands of lives can be saved if we wear masks and we don't have parties in our backyards by taking those masks off," Birx said.
Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser, disagreed, saying President Donald Trump was "very leaning toward the future" when he and the task force issued 15-day guidelines in mid-March.
"This was done at the time to make sure we had enough hospital capacity and supplies so that we didn't end up like Italy where there were people dying on stretchers in waiting rooms," Kushner told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
READ : ANALYSIS | If the Covid-19 outbreak in New Zealand is "terrible" as Trump puts it, how bad is the rest of the world?
He congratulated the president on the administration's response to the respirator shortage, repeating the White House line that no American who needed a respirator did not have one.
"So, I think we have done much better than Italy in how we handled this initially," he said.
Kushner said the United States is in the middle phase of the pandemic and the administration is using what it has learned to protect the most vulnerable people. He said they were quickly sending resources to nursing homes.
The new coronavirus has infected more than 5.4 million Americans and killed more than 170,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The virus is the third leading cause of death in the United States.
The virus, which didn't even exist a year ago, is now killing more Americans than Alzheimer's, accidents, and diabetes.
Over the past three weeks, the US has averaged more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths per day.
"Covid is now the third leading cause of death in the US, ahead of accidents, injuries, lung disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's and many, many other causes," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
LEE : Woman who lost her father to covid-19: "Her only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump"
Heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death in the United States, according to the CDC.
The COVID-19 death rate is also much higher in the United States than in many other countries, Frieden said.
"Last week, Americans were eight times more likely to die from COVID than Europeans," he said.
Less tests = more infected people on the street
As more students return to school, health experts are concerned about a disturbing trend: declining testing combined with high positivity rates.
In other words, Covid-19 is still rampant, but there is less evidence to find and isolate the cases.
The number of tests performed each day in the US dropped by an average of 68,000 compared to the daily rate at the end of July, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.
Fifteen states conducted fewer tests last week compared to the previous week: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington State, and Wisconsin.
However, test positivity rates (the percentage of tests that are positive) are still higher than the recommended 5% in more than 30 states, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
“The testing situation is not good in the United States. What we don't detect are contagious people, ”said Dr. William Haseltine, President of Access Health International.
“We are probably 8 out of 10 people who are contagious. And any decline in testing is concerning because we are not doing well yet. And if you don't select the people who are contagious from the crowd, then the epidemic spreads… This epidemic is still spreading widely.
Why do some states test less?
Medical experts say there can be several reasons.
'One of the reasons testing is declining is that supplies are not being shipped to places where testing can be done. I think it's part of a strategy not to count how many people are infected, ”Haseltine said.
Another reason is that people may be less motivated to get tested, knowing that it can take several days or more to get results. And significant delays can make some tests "practically useless."
CNN medical analyst Dr. Kent Sepkowitz said he is concerned that some states are following the lead of President Donald Trump, who said that "when you do more tests, you find more cases," which could cause the United States to "fall apart." look bad ».
LEE : Covid-19 is now the third leading cause of death in the US, but testing and contact tracing decreased
Sepkowitz, an infection control expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, noted that several states that have touted a reduced case count also had some of the highest test positivity rates, an indicator that the virus it is spreading.
"So even though rates are getting worse, many states have decided to reduce their efforts to find cases," he wrote. "As a result, by searching less, they are finding fewer cases, and indeed the number of cases is decreasing."
Florida Governor Touts Success
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state has seen six consecutive weeks of declines in test positivity rates.
And the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients has dropped by nearly 40% since it peaked on July 22, he added. The number of ICU patients has dropped 30% since July 18.
DeSantis said he believes the downtrends across the state are long-lasting. "We are going to continue working hard to see these good trends."
One of the measures the state took to mitigate the number of cases was to close the bars at the end of June.
Halsey Beshears, Florida's top business regulator, is reviewing comments and ideas from its meetings with bar and brewery owners across the state, but no timetable has been set for the reopening of bars, according to Karen Smith, a spokeswoman for the department. of Business and Professional Regulation of Florida.
"While the timeline for reopening is uncertain, Secretary Beshears understands the urgency of business owners at these recent meetings," Smith said.
LEE : Bars and restaurants full of young people without masks or distancing would be the reason for greater infections and deaths in the elderly #EncuentroDigitalCNN
Minority Volunteer Shortage Could Delay Vaccines
While medical experts hope that a vaccine will be available in 2021, researchers have found a problem: Not enough black and Latino volunteers have signed up for clinical trials.
Of the 350,000 people who have registered online, 10% are Black or Latino, according to Dr. Jim Kublin, executive director of operations for the Covid-19 Prevention Network.
That's not enough, as the trial participants are supposed to reflect the affected population. Research shows that more than half of COVID-19 cases in the US have occurred among black and Latino people.
Much of the mistrust stems from a history of medical atrocities against minorities. From 1932 to 1972, black men were subjects of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study without their knowledge or consent and were not offered penicillin to treat their disease.
Why are fewer Latinos and Blacks trying the vaccine? 0:49In the 1800s, Dr. J. Marion Sims experimented on slaves and performed surgeries without their consent and without anesthesia.
And from the 1940s to the 1970s, researchers in various studies exposed hundreds of mostly black subjects to dangerous amounts of radiation.
Health officials are trying to gain the trust of minority communities and recruit more diverse volunteers for phase 3 trials of the coronavirus vaccine.
So far, phases 1 and 2 have shown that the vaccine is safe. Some volunteers experienced fever and muscle aches, but felt better after a day or two.
A quick and inexpensive test just received emergency approval
The good news: A new saliva test could give Americans a quick way to know if they have COVID-19 and if they need to isolate themselves to help prevent the spread.
Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health created the SalivaDirect test, which received emergency use clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Saturday.
"If cheap alternatives like SalivaDirect can be rolled out across the country, we can finally control this pandemic, even before a vaccine," said Nathan Grubaugh, assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale.
LEE : The new saliva-based covid-19 test could be a quick and inexpensive "tipping point"
Unlike other tests that require specialized supplies, the SalivaDirect test does not require a specific swab or collection device. It can also be used with reagents from various suppliers.
"We simplified the test to only cost a couple of dollars for reagents, and we expect labs to only charge about $ 10 per sample," said Grubaugh.
The researchers said the new test can produce results in less than three hours and the accuracy is on par with the results of traditional nasal swabs. They said the SalivaDirect tests could be publicly available in the coming weeks.
CNN's Elizabeth Cohen, Rosa Flores, Carma Hassan, Madeline Holcombe, Jamiel Lynch, Denise Royal, Chandler Thornton, and Dana Vigue contributed to this report.
Pandemic