You seem to be focused on details of the current situation and haven't clarified where you think we should be going in the future with testing. Do you think the current situation is correct? If a Dr. is required to be present (I am getting that from you), then do you think that is the right way to go? Do you think that it's a good thing that testing is in such short supply that individuals quite understandably wanting to stay on top of their status in the US have little hope of getting a test, let alone the repeated tests that would help?

From the moment the President started opening his viciously incompetent mouth about the issues, he was condescending about individuals (otherwise known as taxpayers, otherwise known as the people who employ him) getting testing. My understanding has been, and continues to be, that this is the exact opposite of what the government posture should be in this situation. My view, which I believe echoes at least some of what we hear from experts, is that (as long as we have not given up hope against all people on earth getting infected) a key long-term tool in trying to beat this problem is to make testing, isolating, tracking and other measures extremely common and available.

Even if we hear some claiming that the health of jobs and the economy are vitally important and are not being heeded enough in this crisis, it must be said that the pro-economy way to address this situation is NOT to tell someone with cold symptoms to stay home, but to fail to provide any testing. How much of the economy is being sacrificed to all of us operating in the dark, erring on the side of not going to work because we can't get access to knowledge of who has what?

@kmaz without going into breat detail about the idiot ways people could mess things up, I'll just say that im comfortable with experts in human disease making the policy. That is including experts only the disease itself, and in the he human behavior that keeps it going. Individual fantasies about how they personally would make decisions, based on only information under their control, is exactly how we got here.

Hi - this is a thought exercise, to provoke more (hopefully thoughtful and productive) discussion of testing and its value. I would not go see my friends this week or this month, even if testing were readily available (as it damn well should be).

A friend of mine did point out to me the other day that if we did have testing, we might all be able to get together. Even if this was perhaps an oversimplification, that got me to thinking, in an ideal world, or even in a country that just has reasonably competent government executives and legislators, testing would be ubiquitous, if not now, then very soon. A reasonably well-managed legislative branch prioritization in a war-like crisis like this would involve prioritizing production of essential equipment, including testing, .... not to the point of doing folks a favor if you test critically ill people, but to the point of producing so many test kits that we can get out ahead of the next wave and prevent it. This means thinking further out ahead even though some here would try to prevent that, and it involves adjusting our thinking so that healthy-seeming citizens who demand access to repeated testing (once the emergency production has created enough kits) are not treated under any circumstances as though they should be stigmatized or as though they are asking too much.

@kmaz ummm, compare to testing for STD's...you are only "fine" until your next contact. Period.

@AnneWimsey

I'm not really sure what you're getting at, but as I said, the point here is to promote some thinking that goes further into the future. In particular, I want to get folks to start thinking more clearly about where we should be going with testing. In case you are not up to speed, here are a couple of good links as to the value of testing:

[hbr.org]
[who.int]

@Allamanda Yep!