[JulieER]

Originally Posted by alfredpopcorn@gmail.com

This is what happens when seniors are Lock up to for to long .
Relax everything is going fine - seniors are receiving SS - pensions etc . Concern should be given to the working population and there future survival. Which is what the powers to be are doing while some us stay luck up and complain.

So what happens to SS when people aren’t working and we lose the contributions normally made? We will run out way sooner than projected. What happens to our funded pensions when companies can’t sell their products and funding falls shorter and shorter? A certain percentage of our pensions are guaranteed by the “bank” but what happens when they don’t have the money for us? This recession is going to be worse than anything we’ve ever had. Farmers already are plowing under their fields since no one to sell their crops to with restaurants and schools closed. Immigration halted so Americans can go in the fields and pick tomatoes and beans for minimum wage - like they will even apply for the jobs! Meat and poultry processing plants shutting down across the nation because the working conditions are so poor, the virus knocked them all under. This all HAS to affect our food supply eventually. I thought I would be OK with SS and pension but now I’m not so sure...

[jmpalladino]

Originally Posted by karostay

Your source is ?

It cited within the post!

[LiverpoolWalrus]

Originally Posted by Tom2172

We are not behind in testing! We are ahead in FakeNewsMedia

Simple corona home test
Light a match
Can you smell it ? You don’t have corona
Taste & smell are lost with corona virus

OK, but what if you're infected but asymptomatic? I agree with you about the prevalence of fake news, but when information is posted about how you can do a "home test" to see if you have the virus and it is not necessarily true, I'd like to ask you if that falls into the same category.

I'm far from the "sky is falling" type, but I do know that people will behave differently if they know they are positive for the virus. At least many will.

[Jazzman]

Originally Posted by skarra

I don't get why the richest country in the world is at #42 on the tests/1M population chart (Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,628,469 Cases and 183,491 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer). It is still very difficult to get a test weeks after we were promised they were available to everyone.

If we don't know where we stand re infections (the hidden threat), how can we make a sane decision that it's safe to go back to business as usual?

Hope is not a strategy. I've no confidence in what they're telling me - it is NOT safe to go back to "normal" until we get more testing done.

The initial issue rested solely in the lap of the CDC. Historically, they work to develop tests and vaccines for various influenza types. That’s how the federal government has always handled, forever. In early February they developed and manufactured the tests and distributed only to revive feedback that there were flawed results. If those initial tests distributed provided results as designed than major private labs could produce the tests as well to meet demand. It wasn’t until the identification of the flawed results that a decision was made to allow the private sector e.g., diagnostic companies to develop and manufacture tests. Unfortunately this does not happen overnight yet the FDA did a great job in ramping up the approval process. Having worked in the medical device and diagnostic business for quite a long time I can tell you that the FDA had many requirements for the submission of tests whether antigen or antibody that did not have anything to do with the safety of the test or it’s efficacy specific to results. Moving forward hopefully the FDA will review all of its procedures to reduce the approval times without safety or efficacy being compromised

[sloanst]

Originally Posted by skarra

I don't get why the richest country in the world is at #42 on the tests/1M population chart (Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,628,469 Cases and 183,491 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer). It is still very difficult to get a test weeks after we were promised they were available to everyone.

If we don't know where we stand re infections (the hidden threat), how can we make a sane decision that it's safe to go back to business as usual?

Hope is not a strategy. I've no confidence in what they're telling me - it is NOT safe to go back to "normal" until we get more testing done.

Because we allowed China to be the producer of our goods and we are now paying the price for that horrible decision. It took only about 30 years to gut our manufacturing. We should reverse this trend as soon as possible. Design here, develop here, create here, hire here, process here and build here. No other country should have the ability to hold us hostage for goods we could've made ourselves.

[Daddymac]

Total COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people - Our World in Data..

[mikemalloy]

Originally Posted by Nell57

Google Politifact.....
Feb 28, 2020 · Says of President Donald Trump's actions on the coronavirus:
No. 1, he fired the pandemic team two years ago.
No. 2, he's been defunding the Centers for Disease Control.”.
Add to that the fact that up until now we were dependent on China to supply the testing reagent. We are scrambling to get it manufactured here.
All 50 states have the same shortage.

From what I've read the "team" was merged with another part of the NSA. With the merger top administrators were no longer needed. (My question is why didn't the wizz-bang pandemic team not replenish our ventilator supply after it was depleted after the last flu outbreak?) As to CDC funding that is completely untrue. While Trump's proposed budget has less funding for the CDC the budget as adopted by Congress had no cuts. But hey, believe what YOU want to.

[davem4616]

we all know what the symptoms for this virus are

unless you have those symptoms you don't have the virus

a test is only measuring in the present...the next hour after you take the test you could be exposed to the virus...

so if you do not have any symptoms please relax and stay safe

now if you absolutely must take a test....come on over to my house and teach me how to use all the features in my new smart phone

[Heyitsrick]

Originally Posted by Nell57

Google Politifact.....
Feb 28, 2020 · Says of President Donald Trump's actions on the coronavirus:
No. 1, he fired the pandemic team two years ago.
No. 2, he's been defunding the Centers for Disease Control.”.
Add to that the fact that up until now we were dependent on China to supply the testing reagent. We are scrambling to get it manufactured here.
All 50 states have the same shortage.

Did the Trump administration "fire" the pandemic team? How about asking the former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council, Tim Morrison. He wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post that totally debunks this.

"It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Washington Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I (Tim Morrison) led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious."

No, the White House Didn’t ‘Dissolve’ Its Pandemic Response Office | RealClearPolitics

[OhioBuckeye]

Originally Posted by skarra

I don't get why the richest country in the world is at #42 on the tests/1M population chart (Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,628,469 Cases and 183,491 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer). It is still very difficult to get a test weeks after we were promised they were available to everyone.

If we don't know where we stand re infections (the hidden threat), how can we make a sane decision that it's safe to go back to business as usual?

Hope is not a strategy. I've no confidence in what they're telling me - it is NOT safe to go back to "normal" until we get more testing done.

I here what you’re saying but I really think the govt. would like us to wait another month but there’s to many impatient people out there that want go back to work & rightly so. If to many businesses open back up you’ll see people with Covid-19 working right along side of someone that doesn’t & then here we go again, it’ll start all over again! Also I PERSONALLY think you’re wrong about the U.S. being one of the slowest in developing a vaccine. If your watching the news (any news) they’re saying it’ll be at least a yr. before they find a vaccine. Other countries haven’t even mentioned about having a vaccine, unless you believe China. I’m staying home as much as I can, other people can do what they want, it’s their life!

[ficoguy]

Originally Posted by skarra

I don't get why the richest country in the world is at #42 on the tests/1M population chart (Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,628,469 Cases and 183,491 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer). It is still very difficult to get a test weeks after we were promised they were available to everyone.

If we don't know where we stand re infections (the hidden threat), how can we make a sane decision that it's safe to go back to business as usual?

Hope is not a strategy. I've no confidence in what they're telling me - it is NOT safe to go back to "normal" until we get more testing done.

If we needed 100 million test kits for The Clap, do we have them? Nooooooo.....

[ficoguy]

Originally Posted by ficoguy

If we needed 100 million test kits for The Clap, do we have them? Nooooooo.....

We are not the richest per capita.

[LiverpoolWalrus]

Originally Posted by davem4616

we all know what the symptoms for this virus are

unless you have those symptoms you don't have the virus

That is just not true in all cases. It seems that people with symptoms are more contagious, yes, but the virus can be spread by asymptomatic people, too. This is all over cable news, the internet, radio news/talk shows, newspapers, magazines. And at least two people on this thread alone appear to be unaware of this.

The Silent Spreaders Of COVID-19: Asymptomatic, Presymptomatic, Mildly Symptomatic Cases : Goats and Soda : NPR

[ficoguy]

Do we have 100 million test kits if people somehow decided we all needed a test for venereal disease? I highly doubt we have 100 million of any kinds of tests - these kits deteriorate if not used over time. I'm not talking about cotton swabs - I'm talking about the chemicals and reagents that are used to process the swab. Its ridiculous to assume we can get tested anytime, anywhere for anything. There is a ramp up period. Oh, and someone has to pay for these too...

[Joelack99]

We are behind in testing because our administration failed to plan properly for a pandemic. It was obvious that one would come eventually. There was a Pandemic planning commission, dissolved by the administration who didn’t read the science. CDC made a mistake with their test. This happens. But there was no one in the administration with a Plan B, a requirement for all critical planning elements.

They could have recovered. WHO made their test available. We didn’t ask for it. Other countries had tests we could have used. We didn’t ask.

Instead, we chose to go private, perhaps so certain companies could take a windfall? (This is unproven but provides a possible motive.)

Anyway, we didn’t plan to succeed, so we failed at the #1 task in an epidemic. We had poor leadership at the federal level. That’s the bottom line.

It did not have to be this way. And people have died and many more will die because of it.