Testing, testing

The novel coronavirus known as Covid-19 is now circulating freely. For the vast majority of patients, the infection feels like a flu that comes and goes. For the elderly and immunocompromised, however, the virus can be a bigger deal — which underlines the need for all people to wash their hands, cover their mouths when they sneeze and stay home when symptomatic, and for leaders to take all reasonable steps to slow its spread.

But public health officials can’t contain what they can’t detect. There’s no good way to slow the spread of a bug without knowing who’s got it. That’s why diagnostic tests that swiftly return accurate results are crucial in the early stages of an outbreak.

Here, the federal government has made a hash of things.

In the outbreak’s early stages, the U.S. declined to use the World Health Organization’s test, working instead to develop its own. The fateful decision lost precious days.

Manufacturing and other logistical delays compounded problems, as did the fact that contamination may have been introduced into kits in an Atlanta Centers for Disease Control lab.

Friday, President Trump boasted that “Anybody who wants a test gets a test.” That’s just false, and especially infuriating coming from an administration that’s slowwalked authorization of state and local labs ready to step into the breach. Good for Gov. Cuomo for demanding, and getting, permission for New York labs.

When thousands more people are tested, the epidemic will begin to look both worse and better. Worse, in that the number of people infected will rise sharply. Better, in that the vast majority of those identified as having the virus will soon be healthy again, resulting in calculated fatality rates much lower than the now-circulated 3.4%.

So be it. We can’t fight a scourge like this with our eyes closed.