Saturday, March 28, 2020

City Ramps Up Testing



The City of San Angelo reported 287 COVID-19 tests have been performed and that 3 positive cases have been identified to date.  The number rose from 108 and no positives on 3-21-20.

A high profile community leader estimated San Angelo had 600 coronavirus cases This was prior to the city announcing the first positive case on 3-24-20.  Without testing it is difficult to know the rate of spread.  Other communities have seen cases double in 3-4 days and go up an order of magnitude every two weeks (examples:10 to 100, 100 to 1,000, 1,000 to 10,000, 10,000 to 100,000). 

Yahoo Finance reported:

Philanthropist and billionaire Bill Gates believes that the best way to stop the spread of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, is to “quite dramatically” ramp up testing while keeping social distancing measures in place for six to ten weeks.

“We have to raise the level of testing and the prioritization of that testing quite dramatically ... so that we take the medical problem and really stop it before there's a large number of deaths.
Healthcare workers, especially those working with patients in the home, are flying blind at the moment.  Testing has increased in our community in the last week but it needs to increase dramatically for leaders and clinicians to understand the scope of the problem.  It will also help citizens make better decisions going forward.


God's peace, joy and strength be with us during this difficult time.

Update 3-29-20:  San Angelo has five total cases as two new cases of COVID-19, a young boy and man in his 30's, tested positive.  They are family of third case in Tom Green County, which resulted from community spread.


Pandemic spread goes case, case, case, cluster, cluster, boom.  

Update 3-30-20:  A small town in Northern Italy distributed masks to residents and is yet to experience their first case of coronavirus   A Washington choir experienced a cluster outbreak when no member was sneezing or coughing.  This led experts to conclude the virus is airborne.  Everyone wear a mask.

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