Lack of Testing Was the Problem

Covid19. a potentially lethal virus has infected tens of thousands of Americans and yet every day the headline is ""US Death Toll From Corona Virus exceeds 1,000".

Since there is no miraculous cure or new treatment, we are pretty much guaranteed that the number will continue to rise for the foreseeable future.

Its sad that people are dying but unfortunately everyday in this country people die from multiple causes.

In fact its close to 8000 people a day.

Many of the deaths were in people who were already high risk for other factors.

The question that is hard to answer is how lethal is this virus really?

Part of the problem is that we are only testing in most countries people who display symptoms and mostly people with fairly serious symptoms.  This has led to mortality rates that are clearly inflated.

Analyzing the data we see that South Korea, which was exposed to the virus early on has managed to control it with much less disruption to its day to day society. Its methods relied on testing and contact isolation, meaning that if someone tested positive, everyone who may have come in contract with him/her was asked to get tested.  This identification led to the best containment of the virus to date but also because of the extended testing a large number of asymptomatic people were identified resulting in a lower fatality rate.

Germany which is at an earlier stage of the outbreak is also demonstrating that widespread testing has led to a much lower fatality rate than other European countries.  Of course since the virus is still very active, things could change, but I believe the data is indicative of an actual fatality rate below 1%.

No onw knows how many untested people have an asymptomatic or mild symptom infection.  Since we don't test them they are still infecting others, some of whom will develop serious symptoms and possibly die.

We have effectively adopted a strategy that assumes everybody is a potential carrier and requires everyone to isolate or social distance themselves.  An investment is test kits could have allowed the economy to continue since could have identified the carriers.

Too late now.