Cuomo on lab reagents
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I think he’s done a fine job since March 18th or so.
It’s the prior week where I was dumbfounded by his lack of action.
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I suspect like vents we will find the testing problem is going to be fixed very fast. Given all the components to complete a test having the right everything in the the right place at the right time is a complex logistics problem and not a political one. Nevertheless great minds are solving it.
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@Loki said in Cuomo on lab reagents:
I suspect like vents we will find the testing problem is going to be fixed very fast. Given all the components to complete a test having the right everything in the the right place at the right time is a complex logistics problem and not a political one. Nevertheless great minds are solving it.
As Cuomo pointed out, platforms are not the problem, reagents are. For example, one lab told him they could do 2800 patient tests per day, but could only get reagents for 400.
That was due to two problems, A) Federal allocation of resources. With not enough tests to go around, the Feds are allocating test reagents based on need. B) Not enough reagents, period. A lot of the juice, or components of the juice, is made in China.
With world-wide demand (a popular platform is Roche) things can get scarce.
Another obvious (at least to those in the biz) thing Cuomo pointed out, is the fact that boxes and juice are proprietary...Roche doesn't work on Abbott, etc...That also causes bottlenecks.
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@Jolly said in Cuomo on lab reagents:
@Loki said in Cuomo on lab reagents:
I suspect like vents we will find the testing problem is going to be fixed very fast. Given all the components to complete a test having the right everything in the the right place at the right time is a complex logistics problem and not a political one. Nevertheless great minds are solving it.
As Cuomo pointed out, platforms are not the problem, reagents are. For example, one lab told him they could do 2800 patient tests per day, but could only get reagents for 400.
That was due to two problems, A) Federal allocation of resources. With not enough tests to go around, the Feds are allocating test reagents based on need. B) Not enough reagents, period. A lot of the juice, or components of the juice, is made in China.
With world-wide demand (a popular platform is Roche) things can get scarce.
Another obvious (at least to those in the biz) thing Cuomo pointed out, is the fact that boxes and juice are proprietary...Roche doesn't work on Abbott, etc...That also causes bottlenecks.
I think it’s more complicated than that and I think different types of tests are going out now, I think education is an issue, I believe logistics is an issue. I think Cuomo is framing the problem narrowly but as Governor he needs one thing and that is more testing and he is pounding his fists. Politically he has no risk as is proven by his complete 100% miss on vents. But I also think we will see like vents this issue addressed very quickly. I could eat my words but the next two weeks will be very telling.
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Experience...
During the Swine Flu epidemic, flu tests were in very short supply. We allocated testing to the docs based on very strict parameters. The reagent situation took over a year to catch up.
Katrina was another huge shortage event, but that was distribution, not quantity. Same results, though. I was burning quant pregnancy tests, because I could not get qualitative ones.
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@Loki said in Cuomo on lab reagents:
Jolly- what about antigen testing?
Different ways to do that, such as sandwich technology (usually read on a box) or a cassette test like a pregnancy test. I know the Koreans have been using the latter and I suspect that's where we need to go (along with a serum test for antibodies). I don't know the production capabilities of the cassette test, but I do know there are some result problems.
