We spent $trillions purportedly fighting COVID-19. We said that testing was critical to this fight. There is empty retail space all over the U.S. (thanks partly to closures ordered by governors!). Why didn’t we ever get COVID testing that was actually convenient, fast, and simple?
Plainly it can be done. Here’s a storefront COVID-19 testing center near Times Square (June 12 photo):
Why weren’t there storefronts like this all over the U.S., starting around April 2020, the fees paid via the government money printing press?
Related:
- Why aren’t vaccines available at highway rest stops? (still true here in Maskachusetts; infinite budget for highway signs urging people to go to a web site and begin scheduling a vaccination, but no budget for a roadside stop-in vaccine clinic)
we could have had it. look up Michael Mina’s article in Time around Thanksgiving 2020. and for a very in depth look at his ideas, find him on Lex Fridman’s podcast here.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-RuvUkcyJI
Time article here.. https://time.com/5912705/covid-19-stop-spread-christmas/
and don’t get me started on Ivermectin, but if you’re interested in how this could have been stopped in its tracks last Summer, Bret Weinstein’s conversation with Pierre Kory is a good start. youtube took it down, but odysee is now hosting Bret’s podcast here.. https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f/COVID-Ivermectin-and-the-Crime-of-the-Century-DarkHorse-Podcast-with-Pierre-Kory-Bret-Weinstein:f
Starting at a U.S. government website, I found a CVS pharmacy site (there’s a CVS near my location in California). After filling out a questionnaire, I received the following response:
You don’t qualify for no-cost testing.
Get tested anyway
For $139, you can be voluntarily tested for COVID-19. Voluntary tests follow the same high standards as our no-cost tests and meet the requirements for out-of-state travel.
Then I tried the questionnaire again, but this time checked the out-of-state travel requirement. This time it indicated I could be tested for free at locations 7+ miles away. There is a CVS with a half mile of me, but apparently that does not offer testing. I live in a fairly densely populated area (by California standards).
Phil, what’s the point of testing at all? Pretty much everyone has gotten or will get covid. It’s never been proven that “self isolation” for 14 days does anything to stop the virus? I just don’t see any point in testing at all. Can anyone explain to me what good testing can do?
Anti – body testing helps to decide on lifestyle risks and vaccination usefulness despite what anti-science “Dr” Fauci says
TS: You raise a good point. But the Karens who built our current world made testing a requirement, e.g., for a child with the sniffles to go back to school. If the Karens could re-make almost our entire world, suspending what had been considered First Amendment rights in the process, why couldn’t they put convenient street corner testing in this new world that they made?
@TS, the point of testing is to be in the Karens crowd, to be accepted and to show that you are responsible and a caring citizen. For all we know, they could swab you, take your card number and come back 10 min later with a “Congratulating you are COVID free” report printout. Nothing feels betters to show off that you did your COVID civic duty.
Low Skilled, Phil and George A. I think antibody tests make sense kinda. Testing for Covid itself makes no sense. If we could go back in time we could vaccinate the people with no natural antibodies first! The people who have natural antibodies might not even have to take the vaccine at all. My comments were mostly limited to the swab your nose type of tests. The good news is I am working on that time machine. The bad news is I don’t know when it will be finished. The good news its a time machine so when I finish it is completely irrelevant!
If conventional time machine were possible we would already had have conventional travelers from the future!
Now that we’ve beat the virus and the beautiful New England summer is in full swing, are you having any regrets about your imminent self-exile to the land of 100% humidity and spontaneously-collapsing high-rise buildings?
#Science (World Health Organization) says that we haven’t beaten the virus. Thus, even the fully vaccinated would be wise to continue with shutdowns and masks. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/25/delta-who-urges-fully-vaccinated-people-to-continue-to-wear-masks-as-variant-spreads.html
The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly across the globe.
“People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, said during a news briefing from the agency’s Geneva headquarters.
Ah, but the point of moving to Florida is not to escape the virus but to rejoin humanity after Blue Chitholes turned full zombie apocalypse. Once you saw what kind of brainless morons with no signs of independent thought and no discernible morality you have lived amongst, there is no un-seeing it.
Perhaps germane: from my little pre-hospital COVID test saga a few days ago in the Commonwealth:
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Anyway, today I had to drive a pretty good distance (more than 80 miles) to get to the hospital for the remaining pre-op clearances – which were supposed to begin with an 8AM COVID test (!!!). I have been tested negative for COVID 4 times now [all by MD order/referral], I’m vaccinated and have the card to prove it, but nevertheless they want more proof before “opening me up” (which they’re really not doing, they’re kind of going inside me through a very different route than usual.)
I would have had to get up at 5AM to make that appointment at the drive-thru testing center, so I thought instead I would go the morning pre-op clearance tests beginning at 9 AM, and then scoot on over to the drive-up, which is only 9 miles away. They couldn’t possibly take three hours, right?
Well, the clearance tests took much longer than usual for a variety of reasons (I spent most of my time waiting) and by the time it was over, I drove like hell and arrived about 15 minutes after noon for my nose swab, and they had closed at NOON – ON THE DOT.
I definitely don’t want to make another 160 mile round trip tomorrow, so I tried to get another test scheduled at a much closer hospital that I know runs them. What an amazing ordeal for something simple.
Eventually I got it done, but it took two hours on my cellphone being transferred among 5 different people who didn’t even know the phone numbers of other COVID test facilities in Massachusetts. Then the problem was related to who was providing the MD authorization. The hospital or the doctor? Which doctor? It has to be the right doctor. That took another two hours to figure out.
We live in the 21st Century. Just about every piece of information you could possibly have is available on the Internet. I found that I could not call my surgeon and simply have his staff connect directly with the testing center in my area and get me on the schedule for tomorrow (the test has to be done by tomorrow so they can get the PCR results.)
This is INSANE. All of the money that has been spent on COVID thus far and it took me four hours, at least 5 people, and two hours on the phone to have my physician send a 5-digit number and an authorization to a facility where I can drive up and drive away, for a duplicated test that I don’t need to have.
The convolutions of our health care system are one of the biggest reasons the cost of care is sinking this country. Duplicated tests, almost total lack of interoperability and people who don’t even know who to call to get things done. We have the technology to fix that, but we haven’t. For obvious reasons. Un-f**king believable.
By the way:
I was in the hospital for this procedure and due to the arrangement of the patients in this particular location, I was in the next space (separated by retractable drapes) from a Latinx woman (I’ll take the heat if I’m wrong) who was being prepped for her own surgery. One of the questions they asked her/zir) was: “Have you been vaccinated for COVID?”
Her answer:
“No.”
Presumably, however, she had tested negative somehow also, or she shouldn’t have been in the room! This was just before they wheeled her into the operating room.
**NOBODY** suggested that she should get vaccinated at the first opportunity. I listened!
Finally, the previous conversation was overheard through my right ear. In my left ear I heard something even more amazing: In that pre-op space, again separated by a retractable drape, a white woman (again, I’ll take the heat if I’m wrong about that) was also being prepped for surgery. She had a pretty serious condition, and they asked her about her vaccination status.
Again: “No.” The reason she gave to the attendings was: “I didn’t want to take the risk of adding something else to my other problems right now.”
Everyone understood. There was no dismay, opprobrium or blame, there was no attempt to say: “These vaccines have all been tested and are safe with minimal to no side effects, so you should get vaccinated even though you have this condition.” They simply said: “We understand your decision.” And that was that.
I have another rather serious condition, maybe not as troubling as hers from what I could gather, but I was not just asked but IMPLORED to get vaccinated by the doctors working on me. Is it because I’m a cisgender heterosexual male that they thought I was “tougher and stronger?”
That’s terrible. Don’t let the idiocy get you down. I got the COVID vaccine because I didn’t want to put up with the stress of getting crap from other people for my not getting it. A reasonable choice, but idiotic circumstances.
@Alex,
> This is INSANE. All of the money that has been spent on COVID thus far and it took me four hours …
I’m over the free money printing machines of our government (show me another entity be it criminal, legitimate, or another government that can print as much as the US has and gets away with it). We are wasting generations after generations into irresponsibility and laziness. What is even worse now, we are now doing it for the youngsters too. This use to be and still is a problem by parents of a family, now it is our government at national level.
The US has lost touch of reality. Gone the days of “Ask not what your country can do for you ..”
These are coming to the usa soon! https://www.knownow.com/
Wow, from a German perspective, the prices are crazy, especially the 15 min antigen test. They are free for everybody here, and there are test centers literally everywhere. Not only pharmacies, but many restaurants are doing covid tests now, every sport club has one…. I think the government is currently paying them 15-21 EUR per test, depending on whether a doctor is present or not. Which is a medium scandal right now, because that’s considered too high and test centers are making huge profits, so they are planning to lower it to 12 EUR.
(anti-gen and PCR are more expensive though, I think they are about 50 EUR if your insurance doesn’t cover it)