Testing crisis failure result of leaders’ choices

The continuing COVID-19 testing supply shortage should come as no surprise. That’s what happens when the president fails to develop a national testing supply chain and states, including California, nevertheless reopen too soon.

It’s a national disgrace made worse by the fact that President Trump is doing next to nothing to solve the problem. But Trump isn’t the only government official who has failed to rise to the occasion.

Every governor who reopened his or her state without the capacity to conduct the necessary testing shares the blame. That especially includes California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who claimed great concern for the shortage and then ignored it.

The testing shortfall threatens one of our most pressing needs — the reopening of schools throughout California and across the nation. It’s mind-boggling that we don’t have enough testing capacity for students and teachers while professional sports teams, for example, enjoy routine access.

Epidemiologists said from the beginning of the outbreak that the only way to slow spread of the coronavirus was through robust testing and contact tracing. But the U.S. effort was plagued from the onset by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s botched effort to develop a national test.

The emergency situation called for the sort of national focus given to the Manhattan Project or the lunar landing program. Trump, instead, left states to tackle the problem largely on their own.

He ignored pleas from scientists, including a report from Duke University researchers and the conservative American Enterprise Institute, to create a task force to manage the problem. The report encouraged the federal government to gather data, manage testing efforts and provide states with information on what testing capacity would be available during the summer months.

“If this work has been done (by anyone), I have not seen it,” Caitlin Rogers, one of the authors of the report, said during testimony at a congressional hearing in May, as states were gearing up to reopen.

Newsom said on April 14 that he would use six indicators to measure when the state lockdown would end. The first, he said, was the ability to monitor and protect communities through testing, contact tracing, and isolating and supporting people who tested positive or were exposed. But a month later he abandoned that prudent approach, declaring he would loosen his lockdown orders even though the state couldn’t meet the testing and contact-tracing criteria.

Now coronavirus cases are surging throughout the state and nation. California last week experienced its deadliest seven-day period of the pandemic, averaging 84 fatalities per day. The number of cases in California has nearly tripled in one month, from a sevenday average of 2,795 to 7,909.

California COVID-19 hospitalizations and patients in the ICU have reached record levels. And the portion of those taking the test who show positive results has soared to 7.6%, up from 4.4% a month ago. Which all suggests the situation will continue to deteriorate.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles,

San Bernardino and Sacramento counties reported testing shortages that will hinder efforts to slow the spread of the virus. All told, the state is conducting fewer than half as many tests as needed to reduce the spread of the virus and only about 11% of what’s required to reopen the economy, according to an analysis by Harvard researchers. California also has only about half of the contact tracing ability needed for testing to be effective.

Given the lack of national support, the governor must pull back on efforts to reopen California’s economy until the state has the testing and contact tracing ability to slow the spread of the deadly virus. Otherwise, the death rates will continue to rise.