This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The End of the American Dream.
Dr. Matt McCarthy, a staff physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, just went on national television and warned that there will be “thousands” of confirmed coronavirus cases inside the United States “by next week”. I certainly hope that he is completely wrong, but obviously he has a better vantage point for observing the progression of this outbreak than any of us do.
As an emergency room doctor in New York, he is dealing with potential COVID-19 cases every single day. And as you will see below, he says that he has had to “plead to test people” and that it is a “national scandal” that more people have not been tested.
As I discussed in a previous article, up until just a few days ago the CDC has had extremely restrictive guidelines for who should be tested for the virus. Only those that have visited China recently and those that have had close contact with a known victim were supposed to be tested. Obviously this allowed a lot of potential victims to fall through the cracks, and now we have a major outbreak in the Seattle area.
Why couldn’t we have been able to test anyone that wanted to be tested from the very beginning? In South Korea, they have already “built drive-thru coronavirus screening locations”…
Health officials in South Korea tested 10,000 people for the coronavirus on Friday alone. This week, they built drive-thru coronavirus screening locations, giving hundreds of patients an assessment of their health in just 10 minutes.
The US announced its first coronavirus case on the same day South Korea did. But six weeks later, less than 500 potentially infected Americans have gotten tests, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency’s official test count — which had previously been updated daily — was stripped from the CDC site on Sunday, though US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar told ABC the same day that the US had tested 3,600 people.
There is absolutely no reason why we can’t do at least as well as South Korea.
And without a doubt, a lot of doctors around the country are quite upset about the current state of affairs. During his appearance on CNBC, Dr. McCarthy explained that he literally has had to “plead to test people”…
“I’m here to tell you, right now, at one of the busiest hospitals in the country, I don’t have it at my fingertips,” he said. “I still have to make my case, plead to test people. This is not good. We know that there are 88 cases in the United States. There are going to be hundreds by the middle of the week. There’s going to be thousands by next week. And this is a testing issue.”
You can watch the video of Dr. McCarthy making these comments right here. The fact that he believes that there will be “thousands” of confirmed cases by next week should be making headlines all over the nation. But so far it isn’t.
The CDC sent test kits earlier in the outbreak to public health labs around the country, but those kits were problematic and potentially inaccurate, CDC officials have since said. Because local clinicians can’t depend on the test kits, some have had to ship samples to a laboratory with the ability to run the tests, delaying the process of diagnosis and treatment.
This virus could become the biggest public health crisis of our lifetimes, and the CDC response has been a complete and total disaster.
At this point, coronavirus tests are still “not available yet in New York City”…
“Testing for coronavirus is not available yet in New York City,” city Department of Health spokeswoman Stephanie Buhle said in an email late Thursday. “The kits that were sent to us have demonstrated performance issues and cannot be relied upon to provide an accurate result.”
There is no excuse.
For weeks, hospitals all over the nation have had to send samples to the CDC for testing, and that has greatly limited the number of Americans that have been able to be tested.
If you can believe it, only 32 people in the entire state of New York have been tested so far, and Dr. McCarthy is calling that “a national scandal”…
The team at New York-Presbyterian Hospital is isolating suspected coronavirus patients and taking proper precautions to prevent the spread, McCarthy said, but “they’re hamstrung.”
“In New York state, the person who tested positive is only the 32nd test we’ve done in this state,” he said. “That is a national scandal.”
Of course, he is right.
The mainstream media should be hammering this story like there is no tomorrow, but other than CNBC they have mostly been ignoring it.
Did officials at the CDC think that if they just neglected this crisis that it would go away?
A lot of people have been comparing COVID-19 to the flu, but that is not true at all.
This is an extremely insidious virus. Once it gets into the lungs, it starts killing cells as it moves along. And once enough cells are killed off, it becomes increasingly difficult to breathe…
It does this by attaching to and reproducing in tissue inside the lungs, where it kills cells in the process of spreading.
As the cells are killed they drop off the lungs’ linings and build up in clumps inside the organs, making it hard to breathe and triggering further infections.
The virus can also send the immune system into overdrive as it tries to fight off infection, triggering swelling which can lead to more breathing difficulties.
Does that sound like something that you want to catch?
Unfortunately, this virus is now out of control inside the United States. Newly confirmed cases are constantly popping up all over the country, and this crisis threatens to greatly accelerate our existing problems.
I truly hope that what we are facing is not nearly as dire as Dr. McCarthy is making it out to be. But nobody can deny that he is on the front lines of this battle every day, and right now he is warning that we have a complete and utter nightmare on our hands.
About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations, I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and anyway that you can share these articles with others is a great help.
If it don’t kill you, it will bankrupt you should you need to spend 3 weeks in the ICU on a respirator. Insurance coverage isn’t good for this type of illness.
South Korean government is paying for these drive in tests if you need one. If they determine you don’t need tested, you have to pay. China’s government has said they are picking up all the medical costs for the epidemic. NY governor Cuomo has told the insurance companies to pick up the costs.
Why won’t US government help pick up these costs? They print money for all their foreign excursions (taxes are just a control mechanism). It’s time they helped out the public here at home. They have down played this from the start and now they are so far behind the 8 ball in preparations it looks to be a big failure on their part. Many people will die due to their incompetence.
There is a general welfare clause in the Constitution that they invoke whenever they want any other time. Why not now?
China built two new hospitals in ten days and converted many public buildings into bed space. SHTFplan made fun of them comparing them to prison cells when, in fact, this is what the US should be doing right now to prepare for the bed shortages coming up.
They also test 1.5 million people a week. The US doesn’t even have more than a few thousand test kits available total. WTF have they been doing for the last two months?
First and foremost, the president is a flaming sack of crap for denying there was a viral threat to the country and then tweeting out misinformation and garbage like an idiot.
Secondly, China has lied from the start about the virus, silencing medical professionals, and then, when the panic started, letting tens of thousands of elite and connected Chinese evacuate out of the country on flights, spreading the virus around the planet. Many of these Chinese are now hoarding medical supplies and shipping them back to relatives in China.
Thirdly, the response should have been many months ago to stop flights to and from China until China was straight about the nature of the virus and that it isn’t just another case of the flu. Chinese flooding into countries should have been mandatory isolated from the start. Interestingly, the Chinese have been isolating from each other, ie: not going to Chinatowns and Chinese restaurants, so they know it is bad. False stories about whiteys not going to Chinatowns is misinformation: the vast majority of people who live in and use Chinatowns are Chinese people, not white people.
Once a virus goes exponential, then you are in a different scenario. The economic disruption will be severe. Then there is the panic and workers refusing to show up to jobs. This will include health workers and police, both groups who are not suicidal and will just walk off the job.
As for the military, they are only able to fortify essential infrastructure in a crisis (see film World War Z) so don’t expect there to be enough of them to run the hospitals, drive the food trucks etc.
America is safe from the likes of droning people who disagree with him Mr. One Percent Bloomberg, who dropped out of the race to lend support to Biden, the guy that nobody likes in the real world.
This is how stupid the DNC is giving orders to Buttegeig and Bloomberg to drop out to help Biden, who stands no chance of being elected at all to prevent Sanders from becoming president, but here’s the catch to all of it, Sanders also registered as an independent, so that even if he is denied the nomination, he will run as an independent, so, it will be a three way, like 1992 with Perot, Bush, and Clinton.
If the virus were killing a lot of young people who were otherwise healthy, I suspect the government would be more serious about fighting it, but I understand it’s mostly killing the elderly and people with chronic illnesses. I’m in my sixties and my stepson is diabetic, so we have to keep an eye on it and protect ourselves.
There have been so many Cry Wolf the sky is falling warnings ? Why should I worry about this one? And what good will it do to worry anyway? If you get it and die that’s just how it is. Nothing you can do to be certain you don’t catch it anyhow. No body knows for certain how to prevent it spread or prevent it from mutating. All we get is disinformation. And I simply don’t care let the culling begin. And If Me and mine are culled so be it! It is what it is.
He’s wrong because the key word here is “confirmed”.
Can’t have thousands of CONFIRMED cases if you don’t test!
Health officials in South Korea tested 10,000 people for the coronavirus on Friday alone. This week, they built drive-thru coronavirus screening locations, giving hundreds of patients an assessment of their health in just 10 minutes.
All the sick people and some healthy ones pile up all in one place now! What could possibly go wrong…
http://news.mit.edu/2011/antiviral-0810
Been telling anyone who would listen about this one.
Kills ANY virus. It’s like penicillin except for viruses.
Died due to lack of funding.
Write people and tell them to fund it!