In an editorial, the New York Times says:

The World Health Organization, for weeks now, has been making an emphatic plea to countries around the world: Social distancing is crucial to stopping the spread of coronavirus, but it is only half of the equation. To suppress and control a pandemic of this magnitude, countries also must find and isolate every person infected with Covid-19 — including those with mild cases of the disease who don’t turn up in doctor’s offices or hospitals.

For just as long, however, officials in the United States have said something very different: If you suspect you’re infected, stay home. Even those who live in close quarters with someone who faces a higher risk of becoming severely ill or dying from the infection, have been discouraged from seeking testing unless they are having difficulty breathing.

There are valid if dismaying reasons for this guidance. A string of failures at the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have led to intractable delays in making diagnostic tests for coronavirus widely available in the United States. The same failures have sown confusion about where and how to get tests and have forced clinicians to make tough choices about how to ration the tests that are available.

But there is no question that the W.H.O.’s approach works better. Every region that has managed to get a coronavirus outbreak under control has succeeded thanks to a combination of social distancing and aggressive efforts to test as many people as possible. South Korea, for example, has tested some 274,000 people since February. The United States has tested just 82,000, the vast majority of them in the past few weeks.

Epidemiological testing — where the contacts of infected people are identified, tested in turn and isolated as needed — is the only way to fully break the chains of transmission, says Adhanom Ghebreyesus Tedros, head of the W.H.O. Without it, the virus will come roaring back as soon as social distancing guidelines are relaxed.

American officials have not absorbed that lesson. [Continue reading…]