"What they said on that phone call very clearly was cease and desist..Stop Testing" [View all]

[Roland99]

Last edited Tue Mar 17, 2020, 10:27 AM - Edit history (1)

‘It’s Just Everywhere Already’: How Delays in Testing Set Back the U.S. Coronavirus Response

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html

The state laboratory, finally able to begin testing, confirmed the result the next morning. The teenager, who had recovered from his illness, was located and informed just after he entered his school building. He was sent home and the school was later closed as a precaution.

Later that day, the investigators and Seattle health officials gathered with representatives of the C.D.C. and the F.D.A. to discuss what happened. The message from the federal government was blunt. “What they said on that phone call very clearly was cease and desist to Helen Chu,” Dr. Lindquist remembered. “Stop testing.”

A silent spread
Still, the troubling finding reshaped how officials understood the outbreak. Seattle Flu Study scientists quickly sequenced the genome of the virus, finding a genetic variation also present in the country’s first coronavirus case.

The implications were unnerving. There was a good chance that the virus had been circulating silently in the community for around six weeks, infecting potentially hundreds of people.

I remember that article but don’t remember this part of it being discussed in the media