Now that the COVID-19 virus is primarily being transmitted through community spread, local health departments are not able to do contact tracing for each new positive case of coronavirus. Instead, measures are being taken to minimize the public risk of exposure by avoiding large crowds as much as possible and self-isolating whenever necessary and many state and local governments are implementing orders to stay home and not go out.
Stay In Place Orders Will Continue
In order to be able to determine whether a community or state has peaked in its number of cases reported will require much more testing than is currently being done. The only way to know if most or all of the cases are being identified is through mass testing. Only then will health experts and government leaders know for certain that the incidence curve has been flattened meaning there are fewer people getting infected and not just fewer cases being reported. Until a critical inflection point of testing is reached, the local stay at home and shelter at home policies will need to remain in effect.
Final Numbers of Cases May Never Be Known
Because so many of the early cases of COVID-19 were not laboratory confirmed, due to lack of testing kits, many people who had the virus albeit with mild symptoms will never be included in the final tally. Doctors were telling patients with some or all of the symptoms they didn’t need to get tested and to just stay home unless the symptoms worsened. Again this was because of the lack of tests.
Most Epidemics Are Analyzed in Hindsight
The nature of epidemics and pandemics, in this case, is that they are so rapid-moving with cases multiplying exponentially that it is difficult to even begin to gather the data much less analyze it in real ltime to discover its characteristics and how it spread from one region to another before finally dying out. A year from now we’ll know how historical it was.
Jeffrey J. Hussinger has held important positions in companies of diverse areas such as law firms, airlines, local government, and public health. With over 25 years of experience working in Information Systems, Jeffrey J. Hussinger has seen many trends make an appearance over the years. In recent years, he has switched his focus to public health. Jeffrey J. Hussinger also served as an active member of the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel Readers Advisory Committee. Some of his other interests include theatre and music. Jeffrey J. Hussinger plays several musical instruments and has performed with bands for local theater groups.
