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Medicine United States

Labs in the US Will Start Looking For the New Coronavirus This Week (theverge.com) 64

Six public health labs in the US plan to start monitoring the general population for the new coronavirus this week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that the risk of the virus still remains low for the general population. But activating the disease surveillance network will allow the CDC and other public health officials to find any undetected virus circulating through the country. From a report: "It's important because right now, all the efforts are focused on people who have a direct link to China, or a direct link to lab-confirmed cases. There's no system in place to detect low-level transmission that might be under the radar," says Edward Belongia, the director of the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Population Health at the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute. The six labs -- in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and New York City -- are already part of the nationwide influenza surveillance network, and they conduct regular monitoring of all types of viruses. At the labs, samples from sick people are tested for various pathogens, creating a big-picture look at how much various diseases are spreading through the community. Surveillance hasn't started yet, in part because of problems with the test for the novel coronavirus developed by the CDC. The test that will be used for surveillance that was designed to diagnose people who have symptoms of the illness caused by the virus called COVID-19. It was distributed to public health labs around the country last week, but the majority of the labs had trouble running it. The CDC says this often happens during the rollout of a new test, but it has not specified what the reasons for the errors are.
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Labs in the US Will Start Looking For the New Coronavirus This Week

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  • The Amazon drone robot will be visiting shortly to gather a blood sample for testing.

  • Wrongo (Score:3, Informative)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Monday February 24, 2020 @02:43PM (#59761964)

    The test that will be used for surveillance that was designed to diagnose people who have symptoms of the illness caused by the virus called COVID-19.

    Beyond not being an actual sentence, the DISEASE is COVID-19. The virus is "Coronavirus", "the coronavirus", or "nCoV" or "2019-nCoV" or similar.
    COVID-19 is a a shitty WHO hackronym for "Coronavirus Disease, 2019".

    • by Holi ( 250190 )
      No, Coronavirus is the family of viruses named do to their crown like appearance., Covid 19 is a strain, the common cold is another. GO DO FUCKING RESEARCH BEFORE YOU MAKE IDIOTIC CLAIMS!
      • No, Coronavirus is the family of viruses named do to their crown like appearance., Covid 19 is a strain, the common cold is another. GO DO FUCKING RESEARCH BEFORE YOU MAKE IDIOTIC CLAIMS!

        The common cold is a collection of symptoms. There isn't a common cold virus.
        Have a clue before swearing at people in all caps...

    • FIY, the virus was renamed "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" (SARS-CoV-2), from 2019-nCoV, which was a placeholder name.

      • Yes. They classified it as such.
        Most people know it as "the coronavirus" (as in, the one that's going around now), or the novel (new) coronavirus, or nCoV, or nCoV-2019, etc.

        nCoV-2019 and similar are the original, specific names for this virus. A new specific name doesn't change that. And claiming COVID-19 is the name of the virus is just completely incorrect. It's like mixing up AIDS and HIV.

  • Only Six? (Score:5, Funny)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday February 24, 2020 @02:51PM (#59762000)
    Only six labs? Why not get some golden retrievers or basset hounds on it as well? Hell, I'd even settle for some dachshunds at this point.
    • Re:Only Six? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GLMDesigns ( 2044134 ) on Monday February 24, 2020 @03:05PM (#59762060)
      There are limited resources. These are the main locations where one would expect the contagion to spread in the US.

      It's a start and it's a reasonable start - these things have to ramp up.

      Thankfully companies have been researching China alternatives for the last 18 months as the US has been curtailing dependence upon Chinese manufacturing.
    • The six labs can analyze samples from any number of sample sites. Presumably if a doctor anywhere in the US has a concern then can submit a sample.
  • Every time a lab starts looking, a Coronavirus gets its lime.
  • "Labs in the US Will Start Looking For the New Coronavirus This Week"

    If they're looking for it, I know a few countries where they can find it.

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