S1E43 / What Sports Can Teach Us About Mass Testing / Michael Mina, Rohan Nadkarni, Stephanie Apstein

EPIDEMIC with Dr. Celine Gounder

KFF Health News and Just Human Productions

Society & Culture, #Eradication, Medicine, #Covid, Science, Life Sciences, #Sarscov2, Documentary, #Coronavirus, #Covid19, Health & Fitness, #Smallpox

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2020

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“I think it's a fascinating microcosm of the situation we’re in as a country. I do think the plan has also may be shown a way that the pandemic needs to be attacked on a larger scale, which is what can be done when testing is plentiful and accessible; what can be done when people are taking mask-wearing seriously; what can be done when people are social distancing, seriously, what can we do when people are quarantining seriously?” —Rohan Nadkarni What would mass testing for COVID look like in America, and what can the world of sports teach us about it? Basketball and baseball teams have used frequent testing with and without strict quarantine to keep the players and coaches safe. On today’s episode of EPIDEMIC, our host Dr. Celine Gounder speaks with Dr. Michael Mina, an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, and Sports Illustrated writers Rohan Nadkarni and Stephanie Apstein. They discuss the potential and pitfalls of implementing mass testing in the world of sports and how these lessons may translate to the public at large. This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you. #SARSCoV2 #COVID19 #COVID #coronavirus

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you're willing to accept a certain number of infections, you can do it without a bubble.
0:10.0	And the question is just at what cost and how many infections are you willing to accept
0:14.0	and I think baseball has has given its answer that number is more than zero and
0:19.7	so they're pressing on. Welcome back to Epidemic, a podcast about the social and public health impacts of the
0:37.1	coronavirus. I'm Dr. Saline Gounder. The Testing has been one of the biggest challenges of this pandemic. This spring,
1:01.2	reagents, swabs, and other materials were in such short supply that people were discouraged
1:07.4	from getting tested.
1:09.2	And if people did get tested, backlogs left many waiting days, even weeks for results.
1:16.0	President Trump has been one of the biggest critics of testing.
1:19.5	He falsely claimed that testing was to blame for the soaring number of coronavirus cases across the country.
1:26.3	At a rally this summer, he even called for less testing.
1:29.2	When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases.
1:35.2	So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please.
1:40.4	And at the end of August, the CDC bent to his will.
1:43.0	The nation's top public health authority said people who were exposed to someone
1:48.0	with the coronavirus and did not show symptoms need not get tested. But anyone can spray coronavirus even if they don't show
1:56.9	symptoms. So the only way you'd notice stay home and protect others is
2:01.2	through testing. That's why infectious disease epidemiologists
2:05.0	like Dr Michael Minna are looking for ways to get people tested every single day.
2:11.0	This would just become part of our daily routine.
2:15.0	You would brush your teeth, you put in your contact lenses, and you'd take a coronavirus
2:19.4	a transmission indicating test.
	...

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