Which is weird, because almost every post you write, I think, hey, that's what I was thinking.
Yes, someone who was negative could test positive tomorrow. Trump seemed to have a problem with this on a conceptual level, as in wow, healthy one day, sick the next - it's a mystery.
And, yes, priority has been given to health care workers and those with symptoms.
But then are people like me. Maybe. I feel fine. No symptoms. I'm the designated expendable husband, as I do the shopping and the laundry and such. I wear gloves and masks, and have Clorox wipes in the car (I scored a three-pack at target at the end of March, but that's running low). But I might be Typhoid DUer. I might not have the disease (yay). Or I might have the disease but be asymptomatic, which is okay-ish because asymptomatic people don't die from the disease, from what I've read. So knowing my status would alleviate the uncertainty and maybe even save lives.
Plus, having this information would contribute to the data needed by epidemiologists and others to assess the spread of the disease, contact tracing (if that ever becomes a thing in our increasingly third-world nation), and make policy decisions on allocation of resources (yes, I know that is meaningless to this administration, but it may prove useful when a Democrat is in the WH (ideally next January).
Also, on balance, knowing is better than not knowing. It removes a degree of uncertainty. Yes, if I'm negative, I could become positive. But at least I know where things stand right now.
Although you didn't mention this, I also think that antibody testing should be widely available. Many people have reported that they were sick with flu-like symptoms in late January/early February before the virus began to spread. Flu-like but not the flu. Fever, coughing, body feeling like it is an anchor, etc. They may have sought medical treatment, but that would have been meaningless as there were no tests available and you can't treat the flu other than be dealing with the symptoms. Others would have said, screw it, it'll be gone in a week. Etc. I think it would be useful for these people to be tested for antibodies. Sure, we don't know yet whether that will protect them from having the illness in the future, but, again, knowing is better than not knowing. And it might be useful, or even necessary, to have this information in connection with vaccines in the future.
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