“Something is not working”, he admitted Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the most prominent specialists in the United States in combating the covid-19 pandemic, during an interview with The Washtington Post, this Friday. According to the infeciologist, the country is having difficulties in tracking the contacts of those infected and in controlling the transmission chains. Especially among asymptomatic young people, who will represent about 40% of the cases, estimates Fauci. And, therefore, he argues that it is necessary to review the testing strategy, an idea that has been pointed out by several experts.
The numbers continue to rise and the team planning the response to covid-19 at the White House is “thinking seriously” about adopting a more comprehensive attitude, using a collective testing method that allows more tests to be performed and more results. These are mass tests, as has been mentioned in several North American media.
The concept involves identifying a group of people, mass testing and analyzing the samples collected together. For example, in the case of a home with 50 people, samples are collected from all of them, these samples are mixed later and analyzed as one in the laboratory. A negative result allows to discard the entire population of that home. A positive, identifies the presence of the virus and requires individual tests, Explain the American television network CNN, after also speaking with Anthony Fauci.
“The important thing is to know which part of the population is infected. And the only way to know this is to create a disseminated network. [de testes]”, said the infeciologist about the advantages of the method.
The idea is not new. In fact, it has been discussed in Germany or Israel and has even been implemented in China, in the city of Wuahn, where the new coronavirus was discovered at the end of last year. Local health officials said in May they had used only 6.6 million tests to examine a population of nine million, which was interpreted by local media as the start of collective screening tests.
The United States Food and Drug Administration approves the initiative, it has already made it known. Last month it issued a recommendation in this regard to companies. In its turn, Anthony Fauci considers that it is feasible and that the laboratories are ready to implement the idea on a larger scale, with the necessary adaptations. However, for now the pool test is still a proposal, a topic under discussion among experts and advisers at the White House.
USA records 574 more deaths and breaks daily record of infections. Trump justifies numbers with tests
The United States of America is the country with the highest number of infected (more than 2.4 million) and fatal victims (124,978) because of the new coronavirus in the world. And the numbers don’t seem to slow down. In the last 24 hours, the country has again hit a record new infections: 45 330, according to the balance sheet made at 20:00, local time (01:00 on Thursday in Lisbon). A further 574 people died in one day.
New York is the state most affected by the new coronavirus in the United States, with 391 220 confirmed cases and 31 342 deaths, a number just below that of Brazil, the United Kingdom and Italy.
However, the country’s president does not look at these results in alarm. On the contrary. He even says they are positive because they are a reflection of the country’s testing capacity – an opinion not shared by experts and already questioned by Donald Trump himself when he suggested, last week, the slowdown in screening tests.
“We have the best testing system in the world”, pointed out the head of state, who also praised the country’s other indicators. “Deaths are low. We have one of the lowest death rates in the world,” he added. Currently, the death rate in the United States is 5%.
Vice President Mike Pence – responsible for the White House coronavirus team – also assured that the country’s epidemiological situation is under control at this Friday’s press conference. “We are in a better position. The truth is that we have reduced transmissions, flattened the curve”, said Pence, who also took the opportunity to appeal to young people to follow the advice of health officials.
“All 50 states and territories in the country are opening safely and responsibly,” he continued, despite the fact that eight states have chosen to pause the process of deflation because of the steady increase in new cases and daily deaths.
– .
