If you know me, actually know me, you know my long term obsession is pandemics. Long term, as in since I was a small child and my mom was getting her masters in children’s literature and became obsessed with Kate Greenaway, the Victorian children’s author and illustrator, causing me to become obsessed with plagues. Kate Greenaway illustrated Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, and her “Ring Around the Rosie” – and my mother’s creepy, captivating, great-storyteller tale of what lay behind it – made me permanently hooked on plagues. Plus, I have a very weird but very real feel for pathogens. Always have. It was what propelled me through difficult math classes in school. It was all for those evolutionary marvels: pathogens. 🦠

UPDATE on new CDC info blackouts

I was so absorbed with the HPAI Avian Flu outbreak of 2015 – all those traveling bird crematoriums and a quickly mutating bug – I hate to admit it, but I was almost in heaven. I’ve spent my entire lifetime waiting for the next plague. In recent years it’s been teasing from so many sides that there was no question that it was soon approaching, and I actually doubt this is anything but a wind-up to a bigger one. But, nonetheless, I’ve been tweeting about this nonstop but have devoted no time to the blog.

The testing parameters still remain a serious problem, even as new, hopefully more accurate tests, get off the ground. The CDC last updated their parameters Thursday, and no change since, so this video is still relevant, only more relevant since now, since this happened, the first case of COVID-19 has been confirmed in New York.

John called the hospital again, and said because he is not actually hospitalized, they still can’t give him the test. NYU Langone said they were just following guidelines from the CDC.

After he was sent home the first time on Thursday, the CDC added Japan as a country of concern where people should be able to get tested for coronavirus.

Here’s part of a thread I’ve been writing over almost a week now. Twitter really is the perfect place to cover this virus.

Dr. Matt McCarthy from NY Presbyterian Hospital on Coronavirus:

“We are not testing at full capacity and that is a national scandal.”

“We’re being told that things are ok … That’s just not the way we’re talking about it in medical circles.”

Here’s the CDC’s testing parameters as of now. Again, they have not changed since Thursday, despite circumstances changing drastically:

1. We have new tests coming online
2. We now have confirmed cases and deaths

But perhaps the coup de grace is that even if you can get tested, the damn tests aren’t accurate. At least one of the assays isn’t performing, according to CDC itself. In Dr. Nancy Messonnier’s – [Director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases] February 12th briefing, she explains:

“In terms of the test problems it gets a little weedy, but I can give you a little more detail. When some states were verifying the test we received feedback that they weren’t – that it wasn’t working as expected specifically some public health labs and states were getting some inconclusive resultsin terms of the test problems it gets a little weeding, but I can give you a little more detail. When some states were verifying the test we received feedback‘s that they weren’t – that it wasn’t working as expected, specifically some public health labs at states were getting some inconclusive results… We think that there might be a problem with one of the three assays and we think that maybe one of the reagents wasn’t performing consistently.”

So the guidelines are so narrow as to be almost nonexistent, but the CDC tests aren’t working right anyway, and no one else is allowed to test on their own so, yeah.

Long story short: everything is about as screwed up as it can get and when we most need surveillance on the outbreak we are COMPLETELY BLIND.

That’s it for now because, really, I’m on Twitter.