Here in Michigan, this doesn't seem to be a problem. I and many people I know have gotten tests on demand at urgent care facilities. And it took two days for me to get my results, which is the longest period I've heard of recently. Most area testing in hours to one day tops. Any other experiences out there?
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuukin' LOLLERSKATES "We could all be supermodels. The reason we aren't is not simply that we aren't Olympian gods but also that nobody wants to pay us $30k a day to smize." Yeah so it took two hours on hold in order to determine that my PCP of record needed to approve a test in order for my insurance to pay for it... after Fauci mandated that insurance had to pay for it. It then took another two hours on hold in order to be told that my PCP of record wouldn't approve a test unless I was in respiratory collapse in an ambulance or emergency room. It took another two calls to determine that the out-of-pocket cost for a Quest COVID test was $15,000. All this, by the way, while we HAD COVID TESTS. I could have headed down to my wife's place, gotten swabbed, and gotten an answer within 48 hours. For fifteen thousand dollars. Want another one? one of our midwives was at a party with family. Shouldn't have been, but there it is. Her father-in-law went to the hospital with COVID, stayed there a few days. She couldn't get a test, healthcare worker be damned. Hey how 'bout another one. Hollywood requires constant testing in order to work. But in order to show up to get tested in Hollywood, you have to have a negative test. Which means you need to go out and get a test... in order to get a test. All of Los Angeles was at a 10-day wait, although there were Facebook groups suggesting that if you were willing to drive two hours north of Mojave you could get one in two days. So. To get tested in order to get tested you needed to know five days in advance and be willing to spend eight hours on the road. Got a 9am appointment to get tested? Start driving at 3am. Get tested. Go home. Wait two days. get a clean result. Show up at the gate. Get tested. Wait two days. Oh, wait. Nope, because now everyone is testing so we're at a 10-day wait which means the people who were supposed to show up Monday can't show up until next Monday. So now they can get on set with week-old results. It was revealed to me that in order to come to Los Angeles in order to work from out-of-state, I would need a clean COVID test in WA and two clean COVID tests in LA before I could show up to get tested. Hey how 'bout another one. Friend's daughter went to a party because of course she did she's eighteen and doesn't get to go to college this year. And everything was fine except that one guy who has been in Louisiana oopsie he popped a positive test. So we're a part of contact tracing except it's informal and in order to be okay with things a family of four had to drive three hours, wait in line four hours, get tested, wait four days and get results. Because without a three hour drive, you are looking at a three day wait. Congress could mandate a fuckin' pony, insurance don't care. We're still fighting invoices from 2018. This is not abnormal. I fuckin' love all the hand-wringing about the flu. Fuckin' COVID has the exact same infection pathways as the flu and it's hella meaner. If we're preventing COVID, flu is going to be a nothingburger. Yes, I got my fucking shot. Fuck off. Fuckin' five emails across four days to get approved for A $70 ANTIBODY TEST If I were on set right now I would be tested once a week. It would cost my company $250 per test. I'm not, so there's only 199 people getting tested. As an employer, these protocols would cost me $8k/mo for my staff of eight. Let's include the cleaning crew and we're at $10k. And if anyone pops positive, we're fucking dead in the water. Nobody works for two weeks. I'd be paying $2k a week for the opportunity to deny myself $20k a week in revenue so that kids couldn't get vaccinated and pregnant moms would have to shift their care to hospitals that don't want them because COVID. "We could farm the moon. The reason we don't is not simply that we have no functional space program but also that there's no air or water." I'm getting so fucking sick of these fucking articles. "We could solve the problem if only someone could solve this problem." Hey Atul - we could deploy the national guard and the defense production act to mandate a national test-and-trace program using the full budget of the defense department to appropriate and nationalize all testing capacity and it would still take six months of Republicans screaming communism before we got anything under control. It's like saying "the first step is to stop digging" when you're at the bottom of the goddamn Grand Canyon. You're not wrong? But you're also not helping.Any other experiences out there?
We could have the testing capacity we need within weeks. The reason we don’t is not simply that our national leadership is unfit but also that our health-care system is dysfunctional.
In the United States, getting a test is anything but easy. Take a look at the Texas public directory of COVID-19 testing sites, which features a bold, red-highlighted disclaimer: “ATTENTION: Unless otherwise stated, deductible, co-pay, or co-insurance may apply. May require physician referral or prior authorization. Please call site to confirm.”
Congress has mandated that insurers fully cover the costs both of testing and of the medical-office visit that produces the test order.
And we have not even reached the fall, when flu season will hit and coronavirus-testing needs and demand are expected to rise substantially.
Further complicating matters, insurers don’t pay for testing that they don’t consider medically necessary.
How often the testing must be repeated varies from once a day to once a week, depending on the baseline prevalence of infections in the group, among other factors.
We could have the testing capacity we need within weeks. The reason we don’t is not simply that our national leadership is unfit but also that our health-care system is dysfunctional.
You know? Fuck this entire line of thinking. This "we" that we keep talking about only serves to share blame where it doesn't fucking belong. 'We' could solve COVID if only we clapped our hands and believed in fucking fairies. 'We' can do anything if only we put our fucking minds to it. FUCKING LISTEN Quest thinks a fucking COVID test should be $15k out-of-pocket. Atul Gawande thinks we need to do one of these per person per day, or maybe per week, who fucking knows. So between the company profiting off of tests and the people trying to fucking stay alive there's a gap of a brand new fucking Toyota Yaris, or maybe seven of 'em, doesn't fucking matter, Atul Gawande doesn't care. So okay, maybe "the government" swoops in and says "we'll pay Qwest $1500 per test because yay socialism" except that's actually gouging because fuck you, the chemicals don't cost that much, the swab is a fucking swab and the time on the machines is nothing. But we're not going to do that because you see capitalism and while we have Medicare? Which pays for old people and only old people? Medicare is forbidden by law to negotiate prices so even if we said "medicare for all!" that just means all of a sudden we're paying Quest trillions per week. And we? As a society? The "we" that keeps getting blamed for fucking COVID? Fucking half the country has wanted universal healthcare for fifteen fucking years. "we" know exactly what's fucking necessary to make this fly: a national health service. "We" also know that half the reason we have Chuds walking the streets is fucking Sarah Palin screaming about "death panels" and Rand Fucking Paul saying they're coming to take our fucking doctors away, as if you need a fucking doctor to get a disease screening, except now you do, because "we" all want to fucking die, according to Atul Fucking Gawande. If our president had any fucking compassion or any fucking stones, he'd go "executive order, we're giving this whole thing to Medicare, we're negotiating prices or commandeering through the Defense Production Act, poof I'm nationalizing this shit because crisis" and then let people fucking fight about what happens once we're on the other side of it. It's the only fucking thing that would work. But it would have worked in February, and it's September, and instead he told us all to drink bleach. So this "we" that keeps getting chewed out by chin-stroking thought leaders? Count me the fuck out. 'cuz I turned furnace filters into PPE because my local health system told me that emergencies might flow the wrong way depending on how dicey it gets and NONE OF THIS SHIT can be hung on me.
I visited /r/conservative yesterday to watch a large group of people agreeing with each other how it was smart and reasonable that Trump has knowingly lied to all of us about the severity of covid, so as to minimize the panicking. I'm not even going to say anything else here. Done.
And even if we do get testing - and a vaccine! - how do I know that you have done it? A tattoo on your forehead? An armband? A scarlet letter pinned to your lettermen jacket? (That you could have purchased from Etsy, and NOT have gotten from the doctor that stuck you with the vaccine needle?) Oh. Ok. A new mark on your Driver's License. "Blue eyes; Organ donor; COVID Vaccine 10/2020". Which also has the new RFID card in it, so now the vaccine IS actually an RFID tag, and all the loonies refuse to get it, and now we have 30% of the population with the vaccine which isn't nearly enough... And we have all the medical solutions in place, but none of the social ones. We are so very fucked.
Vaccine records are kept by States in which the vaccine was administered (it's very easy to call your Heath dept to get your complete vaccination record going back to when you were born), so it's conceivable that if necessary the government could say something like, "You can't use public services X, Y, or Z without getting this vaccine." They do that with schools to varying degrees and it works well in places where they enforce it (i.e. not on the West coast). But I don't think it would come to that. I think that the vast majority of people will see a vaccine (provided it's safe and effective) as being in their own selfish interest and therefore get it voluntarily. I will. Most people I've talked to will. We all just want to get back to normal, and if that's the path, people will take it. We don't need 100%.
But how do I, the bouncer at the door of my local bar, know that you, some schmuck that walked up and wants to come in, have had the vaccine? What proof can you show me, that will make me comfortable you aren't going to come into my place of business and turn it into a superspreader event? The government can say anything it wants... enforcement requires transparency and data, and I don't see how that part is going to work.
It's a numbers game. There won't be any super spreader events if sufficient numbers of people are vaccinated. We just have to trust that the vast majority of people are going to act in their own best interest, which in this case is also in society's interest. Of course, convincing people what their best interest is is often challenging, no doubt.