Newt Gingrich: Testing won’t help fight coronavirus unless we do this
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}One of the biggest advancements we’ve seen during the coronavirus pandemic crisis is the development of rapid, on-site tests for COVID-19. Thanks to this innovation, the turnaround time for such tests has been reduced from one week to one hour or less.
However, getting test results is just half the challenge. It does no good to get a test result in less than an hour if it takes public health agencies a week or longer to act on the information.
Unfortunately, this is exactly the crisis America is in danger of drifting into as rapid testing expands to tens of thousands of different sites across the country.
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If we can’t process and react to all these different COVID-19 tests in real-time, then the likelihood of a second wave of the virus this fall, as well as another societal shutdown, increases dramatically.
I was alerted to this looming crisis by a health data management company called Persivia. The topic struck me as incredibly important. The company agreed to sponsor a special, commercial-free episode of my “Newt’s World” podcast focused on the topic.
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My guest is Persivia’s chief executive officer, Dr. Mansoor Khan. A 20-year veteran of the software and health care industries, Dr. Khan is eminently qualified to discuss how to report data in real-time – and how crucial it is to do so now for outbreaks. In fact, his company has helped some states better collect and make sense of testing data and is recommending that a similar system be deployed nationally.
It’s clear from our national response to the pandemic that we have to be more targeted. Incorporating real-time tracking and reporting can better ensure that people are safe and that we can keep our society open with minimal disruption.
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Dr. Khan explains in fascinating detail how Persivia is working to improve real-time data reporting and how a nationwide electronic laboratory reporting service would give us an ability to gather and sort through information that would drastically improve how we fight diseases.
I hope you will listen to this week’s episode to learn about an amazing breakthrough in health care – one that could be a powerful weapon against a second wave of the coronavirus, as well as future pandemics.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}To read, hear and watch more of Newt Gingrich’s commentary, visit Gingrich360.com.