BobZ

Exactly. This is not a single peak event.

I watched the briefing. My take was its the death # they expect to peak in a few weeks. Not the virus spread.

As for dr faucci....im not going to speak for what he believes....im not.a mind reader. What he did make clear is he believes a infection and casualty model is only as good as the veracity of its inputs and assumptions.

The 'peak' deaths may occur in the current 3 hotspots in a few weeks. But any high density population center could be the next NYC.

Bahamasflyer

There is NO way we can afford to wait more than a freakin year for a vaccine for this thing We've got to fast track everything and have it in 3-4 months max, if we have any hope at all of returning to normal. We've got the worlds best and brightest scientists in the USA and the collective brainpower they have should absolutely be able to make this happen, especially since the govt realizes this is literally life or death for everyone, physically, economically, or both.

2StgTurbine

That's not how vaccines work. Even if they skip human trials (which they won't since a bad vaccine can be worse than the actual virus), it will still take months to make the required supply. The Gates foundation has been trying to get governments and private industry to create infrastructure necessary for pandemic vaccines. Back in 2015 Bill stated that IF governments and private industry adopted his proposals, it would be possible to create enough vaccines for a future pandemic in 12 months. Too bad no one listened. Pandemic vaccines are not profitable since they are only used once. As a result, no one builds facilities that can quickly produce a large supply of a vaccines that will only be used once. That's why 17 years after SARS, we still don't even have a vaccine.

What we are experiencing is a a city wide fire and all we have is a bucket brigade. Sure a fleet of fire trucks could put out the fire, but we never invested the resources to create a fire department.

badflaps

Nations come and go.

beis77

I think the immediate need is better testing, which is almost accomplished (but not near mass distribution). Once they can rapidly test for who has it, had it, doesn’t have it etc., then they can isolate the at risk population and let everyone else start venturing back outside. The problem right now is that they’re flying blind, they have estimates/models etc. but they truly have no idea how many actual cases there are. For all we know, a bunch on this forum could have it and be asymptomatic. The mass testing (rapid tests) will come soon hopefully, and that will be the game changer.

BlueMoon

Look at the production rates of tests. The highest stated so far was 5 million a week and that was for the non-rapid tests. It will take about a year to produce enough to test everyone in the US.

The 15 minute and 45 minute tests had far smaller production rates.

BoilerUP

Abbott says they’ll deliver 50k rapid tests (<15min for results) per day for their m2000 machines, after ramping up production this week.

Buck Rogers

Not bad. So 1.5 M a month.....18M quick tests a year.....hmmm, could be problematic for our business if we can't determine the numerator quicker than that. Any idea as to the cost for production and testing of this one and/or the longer test production/cost?

BoilerUP

No idea...but Cepheid also has an approved rapid test that takes about 45min. Not sure what their production numbers look like or ability for them and Abbott to further increase production.

Between the two approved rapid point-of-care systems that use existing test machines (for strep, flu, etc.) there's a significant increase in capability, and with a number of other private companies (Roche, Thermo Fischer, Co-Diagnostics, etc.) producing tests and private/public labs increasingly processing them, the inexcusable shortfall in testing capability seems to be closing.

IMO, the next step will be some sort of antibody test to better determine actual cases vs. confirmed cases.

TED74

I don't believe the false negative rates for any of these tests are well understood. That will be a crucial data point in determining how testing can effect return to work/normalcy.