What's the point of a Covid-19 test that takes 19 days for results?
For the cases given as examples in the article, from Georgia and Texas, even if they got prompt test results both those states are doing badly at contact tracing which further exacerbates the situation.<p>Georgia is currently tracing just 7% of contacts. They were in the 7-9% range from mid May to early June, then fell slowly to about 4%, then briefly in late June got up to 19%, and then immediately went into decline back down to 7%.<p>Texas is doing 6%. They were at 19% in mid May, rising to 42% near the end of May, fell to 25% in early to mid June, jumped to 33% by June 11, and then have been on a decline down to the current 6%.<p>Experts say this needs to be 90% withing 48 hours of infection.<p>California peaked at 39% in mid May and has followed roughly a declining sawtooth since then, currently at 22%.<p>Florida is just 3%. They peaked at 40% at the start of June and went steadily down hill since then. They curve looks like a capacitor discharge curve.<p>The only states that currently either have enough contact tracers or have planned expansions that will get them enough are: Alaska, Hawaii, South Dakota, and everything north or east of Pennsylvania except for Rhode Island, .<p>Of those, all but New Jersey, Massachusetts, Alaska, and Hawaii currently have sufficient contact tracers on hand.<p>The remaining ~40 states do not have enough and do not plan to get enough.<p>A state needs 5-15 tracers per daily positive test. Georgia has 0.33, Texas 0.31, California 1.07, and Florida 0.15. Compare to New York at 13.75. (Missouri and Alabama are tied for the worst here, at a paltry 0.08).<p>Reading between the lines, I think that several states hired enough to handle the load near the end of lockdown, with perhaps some room to spare for a minor raise as they reopened. When the rise was faster than they anticipated, they failed to slow down reopening or to boost their budget for contract tracing.<p>Above data from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;testandtrace.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;testandtrace.com&#x2F;</a> and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;covidactnow.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;covidactnow.org&#x2F;</a>