Coronavirus Hoax

Another day, another story about how badly Trump is handling the Coronavirus outbreak.

The basis of the story relates to the kits used for testing. Three or more weeks ago, the kits in China were found to give false positive and false negative results. Which in turn led to stories, and arguments, (and still does) as to whether or not Covid-19 can remain dormant.

In the meantime, new kits have been developed that supposedly give 99% accuracy; and the time needed to process the samples has come down from days to minutes…. and may, or may not require labs… and those labs may or may not have the required certifications etc…. it’s all very fascinating for those fascinated by such things…

But for our purposes, America (for whatever reason) was stuck with the old unreliable kits (even though new kits, made by American companies, were sent to China). There was also an argument about labs, that at one point meant only three labs in the country could perform testing. Also a turf-war with the FDA over the approval of the new, reliable, kits didn’t help matters, and as always there were various wrangles about money.

Now how much of this is politics, and how much is poor planning: or inherited structural problems within the bureaucracy, is purely a matter of taste.