COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts as of March 12, 2020*
Confirmed cases of COVID-19
6
Presumptive positive cases of COVID-19
102
Total
108
Severe shortage of t ests blunts coronavirus response, Boston doctors say ANDREW RYAN, KAY LAZAR, LIZ KOWALCZYK March 12 at 12:51 PM ET
Despite assurances from Governor Charlie Baker and top state health officials, Massachusetts doctors say a severe shortage of tests for Covid-19 is hindering efforts to control the local coronavirus outbreak. State health officials have kept strict limits on who can be tested for the coronavirus, forcing physicians to turn patients away who they believe should be tested, according to doctors and patients. And while the testing shortage is a national crisis that originated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, other states are testing more people than Massachusetts and have been significantly more transparent about the scope of testing, a key component to containing the virus. Massachusetts officials have not routinely disclosed the total number of people tested and the state has urged hospitals not to provide their own numbers. The most recent figure was released at a news conference Tuesday, when Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said they had tested approximately 400 people in total since Feb 28 and that the state lab had “adequate supplies and adequate staffing” and was doing a “superb job.” But at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Monique Aurora Tello described in a Facebook post Wednesday seeing eight people with probable coronavirus, some of whom had recently been on buses and planes — and being unable to test some of the suspected cases. “Testing pending for some but the State wouldn’t let us test them all,” Aurora Tello wrote. “Not enough tests!!” In an interview, Aurora Tello declined to provide a specific number of the people that could not be tested because of the directive from the state Department of Public Health, which she said was performing as well as it could under the circumstances. But Aurora Tello described severe limits on testing that have prevented medical officials containing the virus. The US Centers for Disease Control says little is known about the virus, but it still has some tentative answers. “In the early stages of an outbreak, this is how to get it under control. You test, test, test, test,” Aurora Tello said. “Get the contacts of the people who tested positive and get everybody doing their quarantines. That’s how you get it under control. We never did that here and it’s past the point of containment.” The state has said it follows CDC guidelines for Covid-19 testing, which initially limited the test to those who had traveled to designated international locations and had symptoms, or had known contact with individuals with confirmed cases. Last week, the CDC loosened the guidelines, leaving testing to the discretion of clinicians. But in Massachusetts, all tests are currently performed at the state lab in Jamaica Plain. Doctors can request a test, but the ultimate decision about who is tested is made by the state. Officials Monday automated a portion of the test which allowed the state lab to increase capacity from 50 a day to 200. But even that increase seemed inadequate in the face of the pandemic. Dr. Micheal Mina, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, estimated that based on the success South Korea has had slowing the virus, Massachusetts needs to be testing roughly 1,000 people a day for the next three months, to achieve what the Koreans did in about three weeks. Another physician, Dr. David Dildine, wrote on Facebook that he has seen three patients with symptoms and exposure to others who have tested positive for the virus and that, “getting the tests approved is becoming increasingly difficult.” “Many patients at high risk are not being tested,” wrote Dildine, who declined an interview request and noted in his post he was offering his personal view. “I do not believe we have contained that [Biogen] cluster and expect it to become widespread in MA in the coming weeks. I agree with others who suspect this has been spreading in the community. We don’t know because we aren’t testing.” There are essentially two different ways of combating the coronavirus — wide-scale quarantining or widespread testing — and the United States and many states, including Massachusetts, have been doing poorly at both, according to Mina. But Mina said widespread testing is likely to be the far more effective approach, especially in the United States, rather than shutting down large swaths of everyday life. South Korea, with its widespread testing, has demonstrated that it is possible to turn the tide and slow infection rates, he said. Mina said Massachusetts and other states should stop using narrow rules for rationing testing. “We should be trying to test as much as possible and not just our clinically significant patients,” he said. Boston’s two largest academic medical centers are racing to complete steps that will allow them to test patients for Covid-19, doctors said. Brigham and Women’s Hospital is likely within a week of bringing its test online, while Mass. General should know in days when it can start testing people, they said. “Everyone is working as hard and as fast as they can,’’ said Dr. Eric Rosenberg, director of the clinical microbiology lab at Mass. General. “If this wasn’t a crisis situation this is the sort of test that would take a couple of months to bring on board for clinical use.’’ The Brigham will be able to test a maximum 100 people a day, while Mass. General expects that initially it could run 20 to 40 tests a day but could increase that number eventually. The hospitals will focus on testing patients at their own facilities, particularly those who are sick and need urgent treatment. If they are able to, they would look to relieve the health department of some of the burden of wider testing. There have been a number of obstacles preventing hospitals from launching their own tests. The federal government initially limited who could run tests until the US Food and Drug Administration relaxed the requirement just over a week ago. That has allowed hospitals to move forward, although they will still need final approval from the FDA. A chemical needed to extract the genetic material from the virus for testing has been in short supply because of the demand, Mina said. The Brigham has enough of the chemical to get started on testing but it will soon need more, he said. Then there’s the matter of the test itself. Because the virus is new, companies that would normally manufacture quick tests have not had time to develop the technology and get federal approval. Compared to tests for the flu, the diagnosis of Covid-19 requires more staff and takes longer to produce results. “We normally use tests for viruses that are akin to microwave dinners. You put it in a microwave and push a button and get a result back,’’ Mina said. With this “it takes hours to run a group of 20 samples.’’ Testing people for the virus has two main purposes: To diagnose sick people, direct their treatment, and protect health care workers; and to test those who have been exposed to the virus so they do not infect others and to measure the effectiveness of containment measures. “The lack of testing in the United States is a debacle,” said Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s Chan School and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. “We’re supposed to be the best biomedical powerhouse in the world and we’ve been unable to do something that every other country has been able to do.” The United States has tested a few thousand people since the beginning of the year, Lipsitch said in a telephone briefing with reporters on Wednesday. In contrast, one province in China tested 320,000 people in two and a half weeks. “We are nowhere near what we need” in terms of testing capacity, and not moving quickly enough to meet the need, Lipsitch said. Massachusetts’ 400 tests through Tuesday were significantly fewer than the 3,400 conducted by Washington state, where there have been 29 deaths due to the coronavirus. State officials there post the total number of tests on a regularly updated website, which showed nearly 1,000 additional tests in the most recent day, offering a full picture of authorities’ efforts to track the scope of the virus. Other states do the same on their websites. New Hampshire reported performing tests on 90 people – with five positive results — through Wednesday morning. Vermont’s disclosed 41 tests – and 1 positive case – through Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, Hillary King went to Mass. General at the direction of her healthinsurance company because she had a cough that kept her up through the night and had trouble breathing. “The nurses would hear me cough and look at me sideways,” said King, who lives in the North End, where an infected attendee at a Biogen conference last month sparked the state’s largest known outbreak. But King had not had any known contact with someone who had tested positive and based on the criteria outlined by the Department of Health she didn’t qualify for testing. She described her doctors pleading for a test, admitting to her that her symptoms and negative flu and strep tests suggested she might have Covid-19. “You could tell they really really wanted to test me,” said King over the phone, between coughing fits from her apartment. “But ultimately the doctor got off the phone with DPH and said there were not enough kits for use beyond those that meet the exact criteria.”
发现Berkshire medical center有8个人，这是说医护人员被传染了吗？ krystalhouses 发表于 3/12/2020 4:49:39 PM
查了一下，昨天的新闻 An undisclosed number of staff at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield have been placed under self-quarantine after coming into contact with an infected patient, hospital spokesman Michael Leary has confirmed. “We do have some employees of BMC who may have been exposed at a greater-than-low risk to patients with COVID-19,” Leary said in a brief Edge interview. https://theberkshireedge.com/bmc-employees-under-self-quarantine-as-local-officials-grapple-with-response-to-coronavirus/
lz，这是你要的，求入群😭 Severe shortage of tests blunts coronavirus response, Boston doctors say ANDREW RYAN, KAY LAZAR, LIZ KOWALCZYK March 12 at 12:51 PM ET Despite assurances from Governor Charlie Baker and top state health officials, Massachusetts doctors say a severe shortage of tests for Covid-19 is hindering efforts to control the local coronavirus outbreak. State health officials have kept strict limits on who can be tested for the coronavirus, forcing physicians to turn patients away who they believe should be tested, according to doctors and patients. And while the testing shortage is a national crisis that originated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, other states are testing more people than Massachusetts and have been significantly more transparent about the scope of testing, a key component to containing the virus. Massachusetts officials have not routinely disclosed the total number of people tested and the state has urged hospitals not to provide their own numbers. The most recent figure was released at a news conference Tuesday, when Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said they had tested approximately 400 people in total since Feb 28 and that the state lab had “adequate supplies and adequate staffing” and was doing a “superb job.” But at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Monique Aurora Tello described in a Facebook post Wednesday seeing eight people with probable coronavirus, some of whom had recently been on buses and planes — and being unable to test some of the suspected cases. “Testing pending for some but the State wouldn’t let us test them all,” Aurora Tello wrote. “Not enough tests!!” In an interview, Aurora Tello declined to provide a specific number of the people that could not be tested because of the directive from the state Department of Public Health, which she said was performing as well as it could under the circumstances. But Aurora Tello described severe limits on testing that have prevented medical officials containing the virus. The US Centers for Disease Control says little is known about the virus, but it still has some tentative answers. “In the early stages of an outbreak, this is how to get it under control. You test, test, test, test,” Aurora Tello said. “Get the contacts of the people who tested positive and get everybody doing their quarantines. That’s how you get it under control. We never did that here and it’s past the point of containment.” The state has said it follows CDC guidelines for Covid-19 testing, which initially limited the test to those who had traveled to designated international locations and had symptoms, or had known contact with individuals with confirmed cases. Last week, the CDC loosened the guidelines, leaving testing to the discretion of clinicians. But in Massachusetts, all tests are currently performed at the state lab in Jamaica Plain. Doctors can request a test, but the ultimate decision about who is tested is made by the state. Officials Monday automated a portion of the test which allowed the state lab to increase capacity from 50 a day to 200. But even that increase seemed inadequate in the face of the pandemic. Dr. Micheal Mina, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, estimated that based on the success South Korea has had slowing the virus, Massachusetts needs to be testing roughly 1,000 people a day for the next three months, to achieve what the Koreans did in about three weeks. Another physician, Dr. David Dildine, wrote on Facebook that he has seen three patients with symptoms and exposure to others who have tested positive for the virus and that, “getting the tests approved is becoming increasingly difficult.” “Many patients at high risk are not being tested,” wrote Dildine, who declined an interview request and noted in his post he was offering his personal view. “I do not believe we have contained that [Biogen] cluster and expect it to become widespread in MA in the coming weeks. I agree with others who suspect this has been spreading in the community. We don’t know because we aren’t testing.” There are essentially two different ways of combating the coronavirus — wide-scale quarantining or widespread testing — and the United States and many states, including Massachusetts, have been doing poorly at both, according to Mina. But Mina said widespread testing is likely to be the far more effective approach, especially in the United States, rather than shutting down large swaths of everyday life. South Korea, with its widespread testing, has demonstrated that it is possible to turn the tide and slow infection rates, he said. Mina said Massachusetts and other states should stop using narrow rules for rationing testing. “We should be trying to test as much as possible and not just our clinically significant patients,” he said. Boston’s two largest academic medical centers are racing to complete steps that will allow them to test patients for Covid-19, doctors said. Brigham and Women’s Hospital is likely within a week of bringing its test online, while Mass. General should know in days when it can start testing people, they said. “Everyone is working as hard and as fast as they can,’’ said Dr. Eric Rosenberg, director of the clinical microbiology lab at Mass. General. “If this wasn’t a crisis situation this is the sort of test that would take a couple of months to bring on board for clinical use.’’ The Brigham will be able to test a maximum 100 people a day, while Mass. General expects that initially it could run 20 to 40 tests a day but could increase that number eventually. The hospitals will focus on testing patients at their own facilities, particularly those who are sick and need urgent treatment. If they are able to, they would look to relieve the health department of some of the burden of wider testing. There have been a number of obstacles preventing hospitals from launching their own tests. The federal government initially limited who could run tests until the US Food and Drug Administration relaxed the requirement just over a week ago. That has allowed hospitals to move forward, although they will still need final approval from the FDA. A chemical needed to extract the genetic material from the virus for testing has been in short supply because of the demand, Mina said. The Brigham has enough of the chemical to get started on testing but it will soon need more, he said. Then there’s the matter of the test itself. Because the virus is new, companies that would normally manufacture quick tests have not had time to develop the technology and get federal approval. Compared to tests for the flu, the diagnosis of Covid-19 requires more staff and takes longer to produce results. “We normally use tests for viruses that are akin to microwave dinners. You put it in a microwave and push a button and get a result back,’’ Mina said. With this “it takes hours to run a group of 20 samples.’’ Testing people for the virus has two main purposes: To diagnose sick people, direct their treatment, and protect health care workers; and to test those who have been exposed to the virus so they do not infect others and to measure the effectiveness of containment measures. “The lack of testing in the United States is a debacle,” said Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s Chan School and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. “We’re supposed to be the best biomedical powerhouse in the world and we’ve been unable to do something that every other country has been able to do.” The United States has tested a few thousand people since the beginning of the year, Lipsitch said in a telephone briefing with reporters on Wednesday. In contrast, one province in China tested 320,000 people in two and a half weeks. “We are nowhere near what we need” in terms of testing capacity, and not moving quickly enough to meet the need, Lipsitch said. Massachusetts’ 400 tests through Tuesday were significantly fewer than the 3,400 conducted by Washington state, where there have been 29 deaths due to the coronavirus. State officials there post the total number of tests on a regularly updated website, which showed nearly 1,000 additional tests in the most recent day, offering a full picture of authorities’ efforts to track the scope of the virus. Other states do the same on their websites. New Hampshire reported performing tests on 90 people – with five positive results — through Wednesday morning. Vermont’s disclosed 41 tests – and 1 positive case – through Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, Hillary King went to Mass. General at the direction of her health insurance company because she had a cough that kept her up through the night and had trouble breathing. “The nurses would hear me cough and look at me sideways,” said King, who lives in the North End, where an infected attendee at a Biogen conference last month sparked the state’s largest known outbreak. But King had not had any known contact with someone who had tested positive and based on the criteria outlined by the Department of Health she didn’t qualify for testing. She described her doctors pleading for a test, admitting to her that her symptoms and negative flu and strep tests suggested she might have Covid-19. “You could tell they really really wanted to test me,” said King over the phone, between coughing fits from her apartment. “But ultimately the doctor got off the phone with DPH and said there were not enough kits for use beyond those that meet the exact criteria.”
谁有Boston Globe的Subscription，能不能帮忙把头条的那篇新闻转发过来 Severe shortage of tests blunts coronavirus response, Boston doctors say kominu 发表于 3/12/2020 2:58:00 PM
Severe shortage of tests blunts coronavirus response, Boston doctors say ANDREW RYAN, KAY LAZAR, LIZ KOWALCZYK March 12 at 12:51 PM ET Despite assurances from Governor Charlie Baker and top state health officials, Massachusetts doctors say a severe shortage of tests for Covid-19 is hindering efforts to control the local coronavirus outbreak. State health officials have kept strict limits on who can be tested for the coronavirus, forcing physicians to turn patients away who they believe should be tested, according to doctors and patients. And while the testing shortage is a national crisis that originated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, other states are testing more people than Massachusetts and have been significantly more transparent about the scope of testing, a key component to containing the virus. Massachusetts officials have not routinely disclosed the total number of people tested and the state has urged hospitals not to provide their own numbers. The most recent figure was released at a news conference Tuesday, when Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said they had tested approximately 400 people in total since Feb 28 and that the state lab had “adequate supplies and adequate staffing” and was doing a “superb job.” But at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Monique Aurora Tello described in a Facebook post Wednesday seeing eight people with probable coronavirus, some of whom had recently been on buses and planes — and being unable to test some of the suspected cases. “Testing pending for some but the State wouldn’t let us test them all,” Aurora Tello wrote. “Not enough tests!!” In an interview, Aurora Tello declined to provide a specific number of the people that could not be tested because of the directive from the state Department of Public Health, which she said was performing as well as it could under the circumstances. But Aurora Tello described severe limits on testing that have prevented medical officials containing the virus. The US Centers for Disease Control says little is known about the virus, but it still has some tentative answers. “In the early stages of an outbreak, this is how to get it under control. You test, test, test, test,” Aurora Tello said. “Get the contacts of the people who tested positive and get everybody doing their quarantines. That’s how you get it under control. We never did that here and it’s past the point of containment.” The state has said it follows CDC guidelines for Covid-19 testing, which initially limited the test to those who had traveled to designated international locations and had symptoms, or had known contact with individuals with confirmed cases. Last week, the CDC loosened the guidelines, leaving testing to the discretion of clinicians. But in Massachusetts, all tests are currently performed at the state lab in Jamaica Plain. Doctors can request a test, but the ultimate decision about who is tested is made by the state. Officials Monday automated a portion of the test which allowed the state lab to increase capacity from 50 a day to 200. But even that increase seemed inadequate in the face of the pandemic. Dr. Micheal Mina, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, estimated that based on the success South Korea has had slowing the virus, Massachusetts needs to be testing roughly 1,000 people a day for the next three months, to achieve what the Koreans did in about three weeks. Another physician, Dr. David Dildine, wrote on Facebook that he has seen three patients with symptoms and exposure to others who have tested positive for the virus and that, “getting the tests approved is becoming increasingly difficult.” “Many patients at high risk are not being tested,” wrote Dildine, who declined an interview request and noted in his post he was offering his personal view. “I do not believe we have contained that [Biogen] cluster and expect it to become widespread in MA in the coming weeks. I agree with others who suspect this has been spreading in the community. We don’t know because we aren’t testing.” There are essentially two different ways of combating the coronavirus — wide-scale quarantining or widespread testing — and the United States and many states, including Massachusetts, have been doing poorly at both, according to Mina. But Mina said widespread testing is likely to be the far more effective approach, especially in the United States, rather than shutting down large swaths of everyday life. South Korea, with its widespread testing, has demonstrated that it is possible to turn the tide and slow infection rates, he said. Mina said Massachusetts and other states should stop using narrow rules for rationing testing. “We should be trying to test as much as possible and not just our clinically significant patients,” he said. Boston’s two largest academic medical centers are racing to complete steps that will allow them to test patients for Covid-19, doctors said. Brigham and Women’s Hospital is likely within a week of bringing its test online, while Mass. General should know in days when it can start testing people, they said. “Everyone is working as hard and as fast as they can,’’ said Dr. Eric Rosenberg, director of the clinical microbiology lab at Mass. General. “If this wasn’t a crisis situation this is the sort of test that would take a couple of months to bring on board for clinical use.’’ The Brigham will be able to test a maximum 100 people a day, while Mass. General expects that initially it could run 20 to 40 tests a day but could increase that number eventually. The hospitals will focus on testing patients at their own facilities, particularly those who are sick and need urgent treatment. If they are able to, they would look to relieve the health department of some of the burden of wider testing. There have been a number of obstacles preventing hospitals from launching their own tests. The federal government initially limited who could run tests until the US Food and Drug Administration relaxed the requirement just over a week ago. That has allowed hospitals to move forward, although they will still need final approval from the FDA. A chemical needed to extract the genetic material from the virus for testing has been in short supply because of the demand, Mina said. The Brigham has enough of the chemical to get started on testing but it will soon need more, he said. Then there’s the matter of the test itself. Because the virus is new, companies that would normally manufacture quick tests have not had time to develop the technology and get federal approval. Compared to tests for the flu, the diagnosis of Covid-19 requires more staff and takes longer to produce results. “We normally use tests for viruses that are akin to microwave dinners. You put it in a microwave and push a button and get a result back,’’ Mina said. With this “it takes hours to run a group of 20 samples.’’ Testing people for the virus has two main purposes: To diagnose sick people, direct their treatment, and protect health care workers; and to test those who have been exposed to the virus so they do not infect others and to measure the effectiveness of containment measures. “The lack of testing in the United States is a debacle,” said Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s Chan School and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. “We’re supposed to be the best biomedical powerhouse in the world and we’ve been unable to do something that every other country has been able to do.” The United States has tested a few thousand people since the beginning of the year, Lipsitch said in a telephone briefing with reporters on Wednesday. In contrast, one province in China tested 320,000 people in two and a half weeks. “We are nowhere near what we need” in terms of testing capacity, and not moving quickly enough to meet the need, Lipsitch said. Massachusetts’ 400 tests through Tuesday were significantly fewer than the 3,400 conducted by Washington state, where there have been 29 deaths due to the coronavirus. State officials there post the total number of tests on a regularly updated website, which showed nearly 1,000 additional tests in the most recent day, offering a full picture of authorities’ efforts to track the scope of the virus. Other states do the same on their websites. New Hampshire reported performing tests on 90 people – with five positive results — through Wednesday morning. Vermont’s disclosed 41 tests – and 1 positive case – through Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, Hillary King went to Mass. General at the direction of her health insurance company because she had a cough that kept her up through the night and had trouble breathing. “The nurses would hear me cough and look at me sideways,” said King, who lives in the North End, where an infected attendee at a Biogen conference last month sparked the state’s largest known outbreak. But King had not had any known contact with someone who had tested positive and based on the criteria outlined by the Department of Health she didn’t qualify for testing. She described her doctors pleading for a test, admitting to her that her symptoms and negative flu and strep tests suggested she might have Covid-19. “You could tell they really really wanted to test me,” said King over the phone, between coughing fits from her apartment. “But ultimately the doctor got off the phone with DPH and said there were not enough kits for use beyond those that meet the exact criteria.”
感谢麻州COV-19信息群！
以下链接可以查询关校实时信息：https://www.wcvb.com/weather/closings
Severe shortage of t ests blunts coronavirus response, Boston doctors say
ANDREW RYAN, KAY LAZAR, LIZ KOWALCZYK
March 12 at 12:51 PM ET
Despite assurances from Governor Charlie Baker and top state health officials, Massachusetts doctors say a severe shortage of tests for Covid-19 is hindering efforts to control the local coronavirus outbreak. State health officials have kept strict limits on who can be tested for the coronavirus, forcing physicians to turn patients away who they believe should be tested, according to doctors and patients. And while the testing shortage is a national crisis that originated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, other states are testing more people than Massachusetts and have been significantly more transparent about the scope of testing, a key component to containing the virus. Massachusetts officials have not routinely disclosed the total number of people tested and the state has urged hospitals not to provide their own numbers. The most recent figure was released at a news conference Tuesday, when Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said they had tested approximately 400 people in total since Feb 28 and that the state lab had “adequate supplies and adequate staffing” and was doing a “superb job.” But at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Monique Aurora Tello described in a Facebook post Wednesday seeing eight people with probable coronavirus, some of whom had recently been on buses and planes — and being unable to test some of the suspected cases. “Testing pending for some but the State wouldn’t let us test them all,” Aurora Tello wrote. “Not enough tests!!” In an interview, Aurora Tello declined to provide a specific number of the people that could not be tested because of the directive from the state Department of Public Health, which she said was performing as well as it could under the circumstances. But Aurora Tello described severe limits on testing that have prevented medical officials containing the virus. The US Centers for Disease Control says little is known about the virus, but it still has some tentative answers. “In the early stages of an outbreak, this is how to get it under control. You test, test, test, test,” Aurora Tello said. “Get the contacts of the people who tested positive and get everybody doing their quarantines. That’s how you get it under control. We never did that here and it’s past the point of containment.” The state has said it follows CDC guidelines for Covid-19 testing, which initially limited the test to those who had traveled to designated international locations and had symptoms, or had known contact with individuals with confirmed cases. Last week, the CDC loosened the guidelines, leaving testing to the discretion of clinicians. But in Massachusetts, all tests are currently performed at the state lab in Jamaica Plain. Doctors can request a test, but the ultimate decision about who is tested is made by the state. Officials Monday automated a portion of the test which allowed the state lab to increase capacity from 50 a day to 200. But even that increase seemed inadequate in the face of the pandemic. Dr. Micheal Mina, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, estimated that based on the success South Korea has had slowing the virus, Massachusetts needs to be testing roughly 1,000 people a day for the next three months, to achieve what the Koreans did in about three weeks. Another physician, Dr. David Dildine, wrote on Facebook that he has seen three patients with symptoms and exposure to others who have tested positive for the virus and that, “getting the tests approved is becoming increasingly difficult.” “Many patients at high risk are not being tested,” wrote Dildine, who declined an interview request and noted in his post he was offering his personal view. “I do not believe we have contained that [Biogen] cluster and expect it to become widespread in MA in the coming weeks. I agree with others who suspect this has been spreading in the community. We don’t know because we aren’t testing.” There are essentially two different ways of combating the coronavirus — wide-scale quarantining or widespread testing — and the United States and many states, including Massachusetts, have been doing poorly at both, according to Mina. But Mina said widespread testing is likely to be the far more effective approach, especially in the United States, rather than shutting down large swaths of everyday life. South Korea, with its widespread testing, has demonstrated that it is possible to turn the tide and slow infection rates, he said. Mina said Massachusetts and other states should stop using narrow rules for rationing testing. “We should be trying to test as much as possible and not just our clinically significant patients,” he said. Boston’s two largest academic medical centers are racing to complete steps that will allow them to test patients for Covid-19, doctors said. Brigham and Women’s Hospital is likely within a week of bringing its test online, while Mass. General should know in days when it can start testing people, they said. “Everyone is working as hard and as fast as they can,’’ said Dr. Eric Rosenberg, director of the clinical microbiology lab at Mass. General. “If this wasn’t a crisis situation this is the sort of test that would take a couple of months to bring on board for clinical use.’’ The Brigham will be able to test a maximum 100 people a day, while Mass. General expects that initially it could run 20 to 40 tests a day but could increase that number eventually. The hospitals will focus on testing patients at their own facilities, particularly those who are sick and need urgent treatment. If they are able to, they would look to relieve the health department of some of the burden of wider testing. There have been a number of obstacles preventing hospitals from launching their own tests. The federal government initially limited who could run tests until the US Food and Drug Administration relaxed the requirement just over a week ago. That has allowed hospitals to move forward, although they will still need final approval from the FDA. A chemical needed to extract the genetic material from the virus for testing has been in short supply because of the demand, Mina said. The Brigham has enough of the chemical to get started on testing but it will soon need more, he said. Then there’s the matter of the test itself. Because the virus is new, companies that would normally manufacture quick tests have not had time to develop the technology and get federal approval. Compared to tests for the flu, the diagnosis of Covid-19 requires more staff and takes longer to produce results. “We normally use tests for viruses that are akin to microwave dinners. You put it in a microwave and push a button and get a result back,’’ Mina said. With this “it takes hours to run a group of 20 samples.’’ Testing people for the virus has two main purposes: To diagnose sick people, direct their treatment, and protect health care workers; and to test those who have been exposed to the virus so they do not infect others and to measure the effectiveness of containment measures. “The lack of testing in the United States is a debacle,” said Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s Chan School and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. “We’re supposed to be the best biomedical powerhouse in the world and we’ve been unable to do something that every other country has been able to do.” The United States has tested a few thousand people since the beginning of the year, Lipsitch said in a telephone briefing with reporters on Wednesday. In contrast, one province in China tested 320,000 people in two and a half weeks. “We are nowhere near what we need” in terms of testing capacity, and not moving quickly enough to meet the need, Lipsitch said. Massachusetts’ 400 tests through Tuesday were significantly fewer than the 3,400 conducted by Washington state, where there have been 29 deaths due to the coronavirus. State officials there post the total number of tests on a regularly updated website, which showed nearly 1,000 additional tests in the most recent day, offering a full picture of authorities’ efforts to track the scope of the virus. Other states do the same on their websites. New Hampshire reported performing tests on 90 people – with five positive results — through Wednesday morning. Vermont’s disclosed 41 tests – and 1 positive case – through Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, Hillary King went to Mass. General at the direction of her healthinsurance company because she had a cough that kept her up through the night and had trouble breathing. “The nurses would hear me cough and look at me sideways,” said King, who lives in the North End, where an infected attendee at a Biogen conference last month sparked the state’s largest known outbreak. But King had not had any known contact with someone who had tested positive and based on the criteria outlined by the Department of Health she didn’t qualify for testing. She described her doctors pleading for a test, admitting to her that her symptoms and negative flu and strep tests suggested she might have Covid-19. “You could tell they really really wanted to test me,” said King over the phone, between coughing fits from her apartment. “But ultimately the doctor got off the phone with DPH and said there were not enough kits for use beyond those that meet the exact criteria.”
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哈佛和M I T真丢人，一帮废物只能入学上欺负小中男，需要他们出来领导时什么用都没有，比张文宏差了1万8千里
🛋️ 沙发板凳
麻州的试剂盒用完了
麻省的州长连马拉松都没cancel。 NJ的州长这两天就消失了。纽约市长连绿帽子节也没cancel。
这应该写进麻州耻辱史
TM太丢人了
St Patrick’s day parade 取消了。今天Cuomo 刚说500人以上集会禁止，Broadway 今晚就关门了。市长是个滑头，不敢担责任啥都不取消，只好州长出面了。
是什么试剂 麻州这些顶尖医学院和医院都搞不定。。。
要到三月底？这也太慢了
对，某大医院已经公开求救了
隔壁哈佛医学院还在向钟院士学习。joke。
竟然还需要州长取消，白丝毫这个烂人真是干啥都干不了。 这本来是他的事。纽约州长一般是不管纽约市的。
哪里看到的消息？
biogen那帮人连续开了3个不同的会！！！
哈佛真丢人
qiagen就有的卖啊，总部德国。
给大家讲讲哈佛这个人是怎么丢的吧，因为哈佛的专家们一直坚称新冠就是个大号流感，不知道是Trump信了这帮人的话，还是这帮人信了Trump的话
都backorder了, 上周末UCLA内部就在征寻这个kit,
平时大家不是都笑Trump就是一个疯傻子么？特别是这些高大上的名校，他们那么清高还会信他们眼中的一个小丑说的话？甩锅也不是这样子甩的
有source吗
纽约州长也管不到你们麻州啊
有好多reagent可以提的，大家这些年用kit习惯了，把old school
的东西都忘了。先把所有生物lab收刮一下，同时赶快中日韩进口啊。
新增的是哪里来的？还是那个大会还是已经社区传播的?
马拉松延期了：https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-marathon-organizers-nearing-decision-on-postponing-race-wcvb-has-learned/31403906
全部的，今天新增13个，大概是昨天没确认的
改了，怎么会冒出这么多麻州的人来。。。
mark.....
本来就多，我3月3号发了一个帖子，关于麻州第二例的(https://forums.huaren.us/showtopic.aspx?topicid=2513883)，那个时候我还只是担心那些去过意大利的师生。结果万万没想到Biogen就象打开了潘多拉的盒子.....
没有试剂盒，广大麻州医务人员也很无语
要是没有biogen，麻州会不会还岁月静好？
会，大家只能继续瑟瑟发抖
对啊，本地这些还是分散住郊区的，餐馆超市孩子课外。。
加进去了，谢谢提供信息，那个网站好像还没列出西北郊区这几个城镇的关门信息。
等疫情过去，考虑移民新加坡了
新西兰咋样，只有5例
不止，还往外传播，最早就是外州来开会回去发现的，要不然到现在还不给biogen测呢，真的作死
大家还记得Albany附近有个死于流感的中国学生吧？麻州跟纽约交接的地方说不定已经社区传播好几周了，今天州长都亲临Pittsfield了，说明那里问题很大了
是宾州的那两个？
麻省没有放开了测， 至今为止还是靠state health department lab测，所以昨天只公布了三个，因为全国的lab一共只测了8个人！
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing-in-us.html
今晚开始麻省不再看travel history，要求必须满足以下两点才测： 1.跟已知确诊有密切接触； 2.咳嗽，发烧或者呼吸困难。
这还能找出来新的无关案例么？？
怎么知道自己是不是和已确诊的人接触过呢？信息这么不透明，也没有公布谁确诊了。如果只是和确诊的人曾经坐了同一辆车，又怎么能知道呢？
查了一下，昨天的新闻
An undisclosed number of staff at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield have been placed under self-quarantine after coming into contact with an infected patient, hospital spokesman Michael Leary has confirmed. “We do have some employees of BMC who may have been exposed at a greater-than-low risk to patients with COVID-19,” Leary said in a brief Edge interview. https://theberkshireedge.com/bmc-employees-under-self-quarantine-as-local-officials-grapple-with-response-to-coronavirus/
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再建一个群吧