Prognosis Daily: What Went Wrong With Testing

sense to be one. Every weekday afternoon. We'll talk you through the most important developments in the COVID nineteen outbreak. I'll be hosting this daily edition with the help of Bloomberg's Jason Gale in Australia. Before we move on, one more announcement. When you're done listening to the Daily Report today,

stick around for another special episode. It's an in depth profile of the doctors and scientists who are leading the fight to understand and beat global scourges like the new coronavirus. If you're subscribed, that episode's in your feed right now. Let's get started. It's day sixteen since the World Health Organization declared COVID nineteen a global pandemic. As of the latest reports, there are half a million known cases worldwide, and the disease has killed over twenty two thousand. Today's

main story what went wrong with testing? But first, here's the latest news. Spain reported a surge in cases, though the country had fewer deaths than a day earlier. Infections also climbed in the Lombardy region of Italy, the epicenter of the crisis in Europe. Europe now accounts for seven out of ten reported fatalities, the World Health Organization said. In the US, the virus is causing a total economic

system shock that's showing up in new economic indicators. Three point to eight million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week after much of the U s economy ground to a halt. That's more than four times the highest number ever recorded back in nineteen eighty two, according to Labor Department data release today. To offset the pandemic's destructive effect on workers and businesses, the Senate passed a historic two

trillion dollar rescue plan late last night. The package includes expanded and extended unemployment benefits, loans, and assistance to large and small businesses and billions for airlines, hotels, and the retail industry. It is expected to pass the House easily in a vote Friday morning. And finally, some encouraging minds that we may soon be able to diagnose cases much faster. Companies are rolling out COVID nineteen tests that can deliver

results in hours or even minutes. A new blood test from medical supply firm Henry Shine takes nothing more than a pin prick and can tell patients whether they are infected in just fifteen minutes. Other companies like Robert Bosch and The Logic Limited are also prototyping and developing quick turnaround tests that diagnosed cases and a couple of hours or a few minutes. Previously, it had taken days to

receive results. Even as companies race to invent smarter, faster tests at the speed of the virus, the situation with testing has varied widely around the world, which brings us to our main story today, what went wrong with testing? Health officials around the world have urged countries to step up testing for the new coronavirus. They say we need widespread tests to help under stand and reduce the transmission of the virus. But some nations, like the United States,

have been slow to respond. When is testing everyone the right thing to do? And why have some countries sprung into action with aggressive testing while others seem so unprepared to get tests on on a massive scale. It turns out that resources are only part of the answer. Senior editor Jason Gale reports, Dr ted Ross I don't know Gabriezos is the World Health Organizations Directed General. On March sixteenth, the delivered a stock warning to countries battling the coronavirus.

You cannot fight a fire unfolded, and we cannot stop this pandemic if we don't know who is infected. We have a simple message for all countries, test Test Test. Dr Tras was sending this message because not all countries are testing for the virus on a massive scale. As of last week, the US had carried out just over ten tests per hundred thousand people in the population. The testing rate in South Korea, on the other hand, is

more than sixty times higher. South Korea is often pointed to as the biggest case for why widespread testing is a success story. It was one of the first countries outside of China to experience a large scale epidemic of COVID nineteen. Last month, the disease rest veerying out of control, with infections rising thirtyfold in just ten days. In response, South Korea tested more than three hundred and twenty thousand

people in less than a month. It was a diagnostic blitz creek, and it helped bring down the daily tally of new infections to less than one hundred. That was a big slowdown from just a few weeks earlier, when new infections topped eight Here to day, South Korea shows that scaling up testing and putting in place measures to stop onward transmission can put the epidemic in reverse. But lots of countries aren't doing the kind of widespread testing

south Korea has done. One reason we live an incredibly short supply around the world. That's Dr Mike Catton. He's the director of the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory in Melbourne. He tested and diagnosed the first COVID nineteen case in Australia. A coronavirus test requires certain chemicals or reagents to perform.

Mike says all of the testing around the world has created intense demand for these chemicals and they're made in Europe and in in Asia and America, which are both heavily manufacturing capacity smashed, and their desperate to use those very same reagents themselves. So there's a lot of competition for our supply chains. Were all provably stockpiled, but we're going through those tests. That an enormous right. Doctors want more tests because it helps them tracks spread in communities.

It also allows hospital workers to identify patients for whom they need to take extra precautions. In a city like New York, which is more than a quarter of cases in the United States, that spread is wide. Deborah Burke's, the State Department doctor who is advising Vice President Mike Pants, said this week that of tests in New York City and surrounding areas are coming back positive. That compares with less than eight and the rest of the country and

suggests a high prevalence of COVID nineteen. That makes it even more important to find infected people. But that alone isn't enough. So the first thing is you have to have testing. But testing is only a good investment if that leads to case isolation and to contact tracing. This is doctor Analyze Wilder Smith. She's a professor of Emerging infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In the absence of plentiful testing kids, there's been a focus on only testing severe cases or people at risk of developing serious complications. Analie says that's not sufficient to turn the epidemic around. She says even people with mild symptoms should get tested and then isolate themselves until the result comes back negative. It's something she's trying to create awareness about among the medical community in Switzerland, where she lives.

If you look at what China did, despite totally being overwhelmed more than we are, they continued with isolation of mild case cases whilst we stopped it. In total. In total, there's no case. There's no isolation of milder cases in Singapore. I visit a Singapore a week ago. Mild cases are even in negative pressure rules and they dress up for them like like like demola. So that's how serious Singapore takes mild cases because it's about not the case, it's

about transmission. So you need to have the facilities in place to do isolation of mild cases. It's no coincidence China and Singapore took similar approaches to COVID nineteen. Analy says she was working in Singapore seventeen years ago when the city state experienced an outbreak of another coronavirus from China, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS. The lessons from SARS have put many Asian countries ahead of Europe, not just in the speed of their response, but also their capacity

to deal with it. Europe mistake was that we pulled from the experience of influenza Asius advantage was they pulled from the experience of stars. The flu mindset of European county trees meant they failed to heed the warning signs coming from China as early as January. We failed to stock up on testing, to stock up on face masks and and and to prepare true contact tracing in Europe. In Europe, we failed. So it seems the big difference between the countries which got testing right and the ones

that didn't is the infrastructure they had in place. Asian countries had a semblance of what they'd be dealing with. All nations in the West were preparing for flu. Analy says it's not too late to learn from Asia the lockdowns imposed in many countries provide a window of opportunity for health authorities to bolster capacity for not just detecting cases, but also for early isolation regardless of severity. That was Jason Gale in Melbourne. And that's it for the Prognosis

Daily Edition. For more on the coronavirus crisis from a hundred and twenty bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and for more. Right now, there's another fresh episode of Prognosis in Your Feet on the scientists and doctors uncovering the lessons other pandemics can teach us about COVID nineteen. If you appreciate the podcast, please take a moment to rate us or leave a review on Apple Podcasts to help more listeners find our global reporting.

The Prognosis Daily Edition is hosted by me Laura Carlson. The show is produced by Me Topher Foreheads, Jordan Gaspore and Magnus Hendrickson, reporting by Jason Gale. Our editors are Francesca Levy and Rick Shine. Francesca Levy is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. M