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Comment by worker767424 | Hacker News Reader

> I don't regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs

I don't trust Fauci because of this. He lied, he doesn't see it that way, he he doesn't seem to acknowledge how it undermined trust.

I also don't like his approach. It's very preachy. That's not what we need right now. We need someone saying "please stay home, but we know some of you are going to see loved ones for the holidays, so we added testing capacity and locations so it's super easy to get tested."

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Getting tested prior to gatherings isn't enough to stop the spread.

You need tests and periods of isolation, with the periods of isolation being the more important component (that many people don't have much ability to choose right now).

What happens a lot is that people get tested, think they are safe, then after becoming infectious spend a bunch of time with people.

So advertising expanded testing isn't really a viable public health message.

I need to see a citation for that. My gut tells be that if people had mostly accurate at-home tests they took ~daily, it would actually reduce spread massively, especially when it can be asymptomatic.

I'm sure that would have impact, but it isn't what you described above, you described advertising more locations and capacity to make people feel better about visits and gatherings.

I also expect that compliance wouldn't be all that high for at home testing (people skipping tests, deciding they still feel good enough, etc). It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to establish that access for people that would use it well though.

Also, there's a difference between working to increase testing so that more people do get tested before a holiday and making that the center of your message. They need to be careful to not mislead or give the impression that they are misleading, but they could limit the messaging to a statement about working to expand testing.

We can’t just spin up testing capability, though. Normalizing violations of social distancing, then claiming that we will have a safety net for all the people who will hear that and think “oh, staying home? That’s for other people to do” when we can’t actually support everyone doing that is not helpful at all.

> We can’t just spin up testing capability, though.

Back in March and April, I'd agree. It's December now, so there's no excuses for this. There's also no excuses for the problems with the vaccine rollout.

Fauci would LOVE to add testing capacity. You're blaming Fauci for Team Trump's self-serving undermining of Fauci's work.

We have immense testing capacity in the U.S. where's the lack?

Try to book one in the coming pre-Christmas week or look at lines for drive-thru testing.

I can get a test at about 50 locations within 20 miles of me on Monday. Just checked.

I have not looked at the lines you are talking of recently but I've never seen people unserved.

We have plenty of testing capacity and we are doing a LOT of testing.

Maybe it's better now. At least before Thanksgiving, it was bad:

https://abc7.com/coronavirus-testing-covid-dodger-stadium-ap...

Just went past drive through free testing today and baseball field. Was busy. But everyone getting served.

Please tell me you've seen this yourself and not just read nonsense news about it.

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