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octoberlib

(14,971 posts)
Wed Mar 18, 2020, 09:51 AM Mar 2020

Aggressive testing helps Italian town cut new coronavirus cases to zero

An infection control experiment that was rolled out in a small Italian community at the start of Europe’s coronavirus crisis has stopped all new infections in the town that was at the centre of the country’s outbreak.

Through testing and retesting of all 3,300 inhabitants of the town of Vò, near Venice, regardless of whether they were exhibiting symptoms, and rigorous quarantining of their contacts once infection was confirmed, health authorities have been able to completely stop the spread of the illness there.

Andrea Crisanti, an infections expert at Imperial College London who is taking part in the Vò project while on sabbatical at the University of Padua, urged countries that have been limiting virus testing, which includes the UK and US, to learn lessons and ramp up the numbers of people being screened.

“In the UK, there are a whole lot of infections that are completely ignored,” Prof Crisanti said. “We were able to contain the outbreak here because we identified and eliminated the ‘submerged’ infections and isolated them,” he said of the Vò approach. “That is what makes the difference.”


https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/aggressive-testing-helps-italian-town-cut-new-coronavirus-cases-to-zero-1.4205354#.XnGiL82svgI.twitter

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Aggressive testing helps Italian town cut new coronavirus cases to zero (Original Post) octoberlib Mar 2020 OP
That's how you do it nt intrepidity Mar 2020 #1
This couldn't happen here, the co. drumpf chose to make the test is small & failing. lark Mar 2020 #2
It would be hard to make happen here. Igel Mar 2020 #5
K&R, We need unrestricted testing and isolation !!! We can't get that right now so we're screwed uponit7771 Mar 2020 #3
This is what it's going to take. crickets Mar 2020 #4

lark

(23,121 posts)
2. This couldn't happen here, the co. drumpf chose to make the test is small & failing.
Wed Mar 18, 2020, 09:59 AM
Mar 2020

It is totally incapable of doing the job but it was chosen because it's owned by Jared's brother and drumpf is a part owner. We are literally dying for his profit.

Igel

(35,320 posts)
5. It would be hard to make happen here.
Wed Mar 18, 2020, 12:43 PM
Mar 2020

We have 325 million people. That would need to be tested in the course of 24-48 hours, and then retested again maybe 4-5 days later, and then retested again 4-5 days later ... 4 or 5 cycles of that should be enough. That's only 1.4 billion test kits.

We're talking not 1 million tests per day, not 10 million tests per day, but more than 100 million tests per day, and we're talking about keeping that tempo for a weeks.

Then, all it would take is for some people to have been in hiding or for people to travel from someplace else and a month or two later it's deja vu all over again.

Imagine the profit in selling all those test kits. It's like saying McDonalds could have made a lot more money if they only sold a few thousand burgers per year.

Oh, and one problem in producing more test kits is that one of the swab manufacturers was based in Italy.

crickets

(25,981 posts)
4. This is what it's going to take.
Wed Mar 18, 2020, 10:01 AM
Mar 2020

It's been known for some time that testing and keeping tracking of the numbers is what we need to get a handle on this. Here's some hard scientific data to back it up. All of the "it's too late now; no point in testing!" noise may have been well-intentioned and meant to be comforting, but in the end is not helpful.

Tests, more tests, test everybody. To be in a situation where there aren't even enough tests for medical personnel and to have our government obviously doing little to nothing about it is the definition of criminal.

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