Given that we apparently have decided we can write a check for $2 Trillion, why not find a few billion (or a few billion more) in there for immediate measures that would actually be needed, other than throwing dollars at the situation, ... needed products and services not only including ventilators, but testing and other things as well. What the hell am I going to spend a few hundred or a thousand dollars of stimulus money on? How the hell does that help the money and the resources get to manufacturing the equipment needed to address this crisis? How does it help the money get to the people and services that are actually addressing the crisis?

If we want to cut off the pathways of the virus, it stands to reason that knowing who has it and who does not is one of several tools which, taken together, are vitally important. The need for testing does not go away just because we missed when it might have helped stop things before they got out of hand, nor (as far as I know, from what little I've read) will it go away based on where we are in the ups and downs of how many people are sick or how many bodies are piling up morgues.

Even if the only concern in some circles is the national and global economy, testing and all of the other basic measures would be helpful. Reasons for this would include that the sooner we can make testing common and accessible and as hassle-free as possible, then this will help inch toward resuming some semblance of normal business, such as restaurants and so-on. If not only oneself but others as well have had access to testing when stepping out of the house, this will significantly reduce the likelihood of persistence of transmissions. Also, if someone gets a cold or-who-knows-what, often their present only recourse is sit-at-home. Readily accessible testing would help them understand if they just should suppress it with cold medicine and can go to work, or if they need to enter quarantine. There are some people out there who from the beginning who have reacted that anyone with anything resembling cold symptoms should sit at home without access to a test.... why not let them get tested and figure out if there is anything to worry about?

Ok, I know, there are immediate life-and-death matters happening this instant, but it is our moral obligation to ourselves and the world to keep our wits about us in these discussions and not only show awareness, but envision a solution that can save more lives. A way out of this with more lives saved is massively and immediately to ramp up availability of testing and any other tools to help us deal with this thing. If we can write a check for $2 Trillion, we can ramp up manufacturing, distributing and using multiple tools at the same time without treating some ramp-ups as needing to take a back seat to others.

@kmaz do you have any citations from experts, calling for more widespread testing? any at all?

@MarkiusMahamius

Note that I am not sitting around researching things, but from what little I have seen some experts' advocacy of widespread testing is fairly common knowledge by now, and so I was assuming this knowledge in others. So, I'm surprised to hear and read your points, but if you genuinely are interested, here is the most prominent recent statement I know of on this point:

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 16 March 2020
16 March 2020
[who.int]

"...But the most effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of transmission. And to do that, you must test and isolate.

You cannot fight a fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected.

We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test...."

@kmaz almost all of the stuffi ve read about testing is from regular people who are just really scared and wants facts the ycan touch. ive seen almost nothing from medical people, especially in places that already have widespread disease.

@MarkiusMahamius

Do you have some sort of argument with the logic invoked not only by me but by one of the world's top experts?

"......But the most effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of transmission. And to do that, you must test and isolate..."

Do you want to argue that it doesn't really apply enough during one of the surges in manifestation? Do you want to argue that other top experts have argued against this point of view (maybe they have?) or that it is mis-applied here?

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, the logic of test-and-isolate (including when things get bad) is pretty clear, and you have offered nothing convincing to me so far to contradict it, so I guess that's where I stand for now.

@kmaz we are both entitled to our opinions so thats fair.

@MarkiusMahamius

To be honest, I don't think you've done much to support your point of view.

Here's another one to support mine, after 30 seconds of looking around. So, maybe such points are not as hard to find as you seem to be trying to say. I would add, as we speak, the US is continuing rack up horrifying numbers... on a path for much worse than China which has probably done a better job with testing and other measures, though I know little about that.

[theguardian.com]
Mass testing is the only way to stop the virus – it's long overdue
Anthony Costello
The 15-minute coronavirus tests may provide a semblance of normality as UK regions track the spread of coronavirus
• Anthony Costello is a former director of maternal and child health at the World Health Organization
@globalhlthtwit
Wed 25 Mar 2020 11.55 EDT
Last modified on Thu 26 Mar 2020 10.39 EDT

"....Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has emphasised the crucial importance of testing. Speed is of the essence, and three things are crucial: tracking down cases with symptoms; identifying their household cluster and tracing people they’ve contacted; and quarantining them until they are no longer infectious. Testing is the basis of public health detective work to shut down an epidemic. “You can’t fight a virus if you don’t know where it is,” said the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, recently. “Find, isolate, test and treat every case, to break the chains of transmission. Every case we find and treat limits the expansion of the disease.”..."

and this:

"...The announcement of mass home testing in the UK is welcome. Around the world, companies are working frantically to develop diagnostic machines where people swabbing themselves can post samples to a lab. Others are using the Crispr-Cas9 genome editor to create a simple colour change on a test strip within 30 minutes. Either would be a game changer if they could be adopted at scale. People with symptoms would be able to self-isolate, identify contacts, report online to a national database, and the problem of mapping and rapidly quarantining those with coronavirus would be largely solved...."