Simple! They want their sheep to think they are doing something. The visual of spending money is important than the substance.

Totally agree. Ive had friends say they tested negative a week ago. So? Whatabout today??

As to confused-we all are.

The numbers. We accept what we are fed. As far as I know our country, and/or the world has not gathered valid numbers as a base line. It would require a large group covering all age, race etc and recording the number of positive covid 19s in that group.

If, we recall, originally, to get a test you had to be showing symptoms. Using that as an
average baseline of course the only way for it to go is down.

As to money, effort etc. Fortunately it is not my job, a thankless job to be sure, to make the decisions but, in my opinion spending limited resources, yes, everything has a limit,
on tests or vaccines clearly I would vote for vaccines.

Aside, a covid test. What does it even mean? You could arrive to get the test done and catch covid 19 while you are there.

People, all of us, including me are in a panic. Sadly, read the posts, many remind me of the movie Titanic. Women and children first. Hey, Mildred which one of your wigs look best on me?

Like it or not people need to think leaders are in control. In this case,"spending money."
Imagine if they said we know from history, this too will run it's course. Most of the deaths are old people-me. We can fix the imbalance of social security and control population growth and just let it run.

We all tend to think what is good for me and to heck with anyone who is not me.
We all, at least I do, find it easier to complain than to actually do anything.

It's pretty simple, the tests were taking 1 to 4 days to return results - people lost patience - and the test results of just one test were not accurate enough to be valuable. People became smart enough to NOT want to pay for a MEANINGLESS test. If the test was FREE and required where you worked and done on some regular basis (say once per week), then the results could be somewhat ACTIONABLE. Those factors made people stop wanting to be tested. Plus the US is experiencing the highest CV cases and problems in the world. So, with CV everywhere, there is little ability to fight CV by contact tracing and quarantining - so, why bother to get tested? If the money in the new proposed CV bill can produce tests with a 4-hour turnover or less to get results, then people MAY (?) re-evaluate their desire to get tested. Other countries were able to get many tests out early in the pandemic. They then were able to contact trace and their people did not resist quarantining - so their result was much better than the US result.

1. Have you read the plan put out ? I am not in accord with it 100% for sure, but at least we now have a plan.
Testing is a small portion of the plan, and seems to be aimed at insuring safe public schools.

2. Money......the money proposed is to get our economy on the road once again, and to help the states who were asked to do so much that was not allowed in individual state budgets.

I applaud discussion and disagreement on the plan, but please read the plan and know of what you speak. States have been under enormous pressure for a year.....economy stretched to a breaking point and all of this began as we had the largest single budget deficit in history.

Great to have different opinions, but would love to hear about the differences specifically , instead of a simple trite comment.

YES....money needs to be spent......not one economist that I am aware of would disagree.

It’s because 55% of the country have “natural immunity” because they contracted Covid! Simple. Vaccines do not prevent one from getting or giving Covid!

Waste of money to test.
Numbers are coming down but not due to vaccines, not enough people have been vaccinated.
Spend spend spend.

The numbers have gone down I read because the holidays are over and big gatherings are not happening like they were before. It could also be that more people are getting vaccinated. With all the new strains that are floating around now they need to be able to track those with testing. My daughter in law, son and both of my 9 year old twin grandchildren now have just been diagnosed with Covid in West Palm.

This "national plan" certainly is. Thanks for responding.

The entire purpose of vaccines is to prevent one from getting Covid, and as a side benefit if you don't get Covid you don't spread it. The over 90% efficacy of the vaccines completely refutes your claim. Simple.

And of course the 55% speaks to your understanding of numbers and evidence. There have been 28 million positive covid tests as of today. While some people certainly had Covid and were never tested, and some of the tested have false positives, the population of the US is 328 million, and if 55% have been already infected that would require 180 million people to have had Covid. Simple.

I hope your family members completely recover quickly. The direction of the number of new cases is very encouraging. But, the daily new cases number is at a level above but nearly identical to that which occurred through the summer and fall of 2020 when how serious this pandemic was clear to almost everyone. With the new varieties which have emerged we can only hope that the downward trend will continue, but we do not yet know.

Agree
 

Should focus solely on vaccine issue as this was the previous administrations plan and made the most practical sense.

FYI had a relative back North test negative feeling very poorly went back two days later to only test positive - no change in course of treatment recommended (since they are younger just watch closely).

Therefore testing really is not very helpful and wasteful for those not having difficulty.

Vaccines can prevent the disease and transmission so why wouldn't that be the sole imperative focus immediately?

Exactly what part of the plan do you dislike ? Details please

Those who continually harp on testing forget a lot and do not read.

Testing is there to get our schools back

Yet you took the time to indicate that either “the”
or just any National plan would not be good.

As a true conservative, I certainly do not advocate all of it, but welcome any plan to get us off the snide.

But in any case, you do not feel compelled to read it, but only to criticize totally, and that is your right.

This thread was supposed to be about testing. Folks still going back and forth without even acknowledging the context of the testing part, which is to be used to get our schools up and running on a steady national basis. So much has been dumped on the states in the past year, helping them seems a great idea. Everyone is complaining about the schools, yet oppose a national plan to get serious about getting them back where they belong.