By skyforbes 
A daily Covid-19 update from Andy Slavitt, former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Pulled from my daily COVID-19 updates on Twitter
A few gems today. Things I can happily reveal. Today is actually a lot about some of the best things we’re doing. The good news will lag what we see on TV. I was downbeat 2 weeks ago before most and am more upbeat today.
You’ve heard it 1000 times but it’s still true. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. It’s true no matter what because of the lag time between onset-symptoms-hospitalizations (almost a month), latent government action, and our lack of preparation.
So when good things happen, it doesn’t meet what we see on TV. That’s why I’ve been trying to spend so much time on “leading indicators.” But the signs of the future are there if you look.
To be fair, I spend almost every waking hour working on this so even if I’m not that quick I will figure it out. One thing I learned leading the Healthcare.gov turnaround is everyone will return your call. Thankful to all the smart people that help figure things out.
So let’s start with the fire at hand because it’s not going away. Hot spots are still hot. Nurses and docs are scared and without the support they need. Ventilator capacity is the scariest thing. So what are the solutions?
A few days ago I tweeted that someone wanted to pull out all the stops and make simple ventilators and post those plans. I was asked who, but didn’t have permission to say. I encouraged them to go the press on their own and they did. Now they’re public.
I mentioned someone has a project to build 100,000 ventilators. I checked today and believe they are still on track. I can disclose tonight based on a blog where which tech company is driving an initiative to create these ventilators. See the last line below. I know some of these people. I think they can deliver.
And working with FEMA, we launched Project95 to help move vents around the country. Since New York’s shortage today will be someone else’s shortage tomorrow. And (knock on wood) New York will be past their peak. Takes faith and coordination but it’s wartime. We can do it.
The reason all this has been so important is because of the “today I will-tomorrow I won’t” Defense Production Act reticence from President Trump. I think we learned the key. Piss off Trump like GM did and he will make you make ventilators. Particularly if he’s also pissed at your governor.
And while it’s hard to get this information, I’ve been calling hospitals in states far from the epicenter and hearing they are half full. That means there are vents out there.
Now to some of the good stuff. Imagine if we all stayed inside for weeks and saw no one — even our own families and let no one into the country. After this awful period, there would be no virus. Now that’s impractical. But it makes the point that if R0 (“r-naught” is the expected number of infected cases directly generated by one infected person) is less than 1 we are winning.
But then what? We would be back in a similar place to where we would have been when the ship was docking. Testing everyone and contact tracing, tracking the illness person by person. Understanding who has immunity and who doesn’t.
Which is why news like this is so important. This is 50,000 tests/day. Real results in 5 minutes. We’ve gone from 10,000/week to 200,000/week and unless this competes for supplies would push us over 500,000. And real time results matter.
I’m trying to figure out how many tests we need. I suspect it’s at least 2 million/week. So kudos to @US_FDA and kudos to the scientists at @AbbottNews. #StayHome is about giving our scientists time to catch up to this thing. Give them time. Give our hospitals time.
But we also need a centralized top down strategy. Right now we are running out of things and don’t know who has what. Party A has swabs but no reagents. Party B has reagents but no swabs. So nothing gets produced. Put them together and we’re in business.
If you want to make your way through my recommendations on how to fix this, here they are. Warning, not very user friendly as I put together for a specific audience to act on. In a nutshell, it says: get organized. Here’s how.
So I don’t intend to be rosy here. It’s going to get brutal. We will lose people. We already have. But we have what it takes to get through this. For those going through it directly, I feel like these positive indicators are irrelevant. But there is a path through this.
Tomorrow I’m going to lay out what the path could look like, which is an amalgamation of smarter people’s views. It really all depends on how much we adhere to #StayHome.
Also, I decided to start a podcast. Why? Because I want to do something the whole family can listen to that doesn’t increase our anxiety but gets us through this with honesty & openness. And I want more subscribers than Hannity. So please subscribe.
