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COVID-19 contradictory informations
20th March 2020
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I  understand  that  for  the  population,  getting  grasp  of  the
situation  is  difficult.  Contradictory news  and  guidelines  are
announced every  day. "Experts"  who are mainly  eperts of  TV talk
shows come and give their opinion which is contradicted a few hours
later by a governement official.

What one needs to understand is that  we are like an explorer in an
uncharted  territory. Decisions  are  made based  on the  knowledge
acquired day  to day and  the evolution of the  situation. Forcasts
are on short term.

I  heard a  few times  some people  asking why  we are  not testing
routinely the population. That's a good  idea ... if you can do the
test. Last week,  we had a meeting in the  hospital where the heads
of the lab  told us that the current capacity  is 30-40 test/day...
They were planning  to increase the capacity to 300  tests for this
week.  If you  are  the only  lab  that can  test  a population  of
1.000.000 inhabitants,  and you are  limited to 300  tests/day, the
math is simple.  And the conclusion is straithforward:  you have to
select who you will agree to test.

Why was the  lab limited in the number of  tests? Well, first there
are the machines needed to  perform this test routinely. Then there
are the  technicians who  know how  to use  these machines  and are
trained in  the specific protocol  of this  test (you can  not just
hire  interim workers  and ask  them to  start testing).  And then,
there are the reagents that you  need to order and are available in
low quantities.


In order  to make  an informed  decision, you  have to  navigate in
between knowledge,  forcasts, manpower, resources,  individual risk
and populations' best interest.

This is unfortunately too much to ask to understand from a majority
of human beeings...