A New York City man wasn’t tested for coronavirus even though he had symptoms and had gone to Japan. It highlights the troublingly limited scope of US testing. [ARTICLE]

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The case points to the CDC's limited capacity for testing, which could leave cases undetected. He'd recently returned from a business trip to Japan, where at least 230 people have tested positive for the new coronavirus. The CDC denied the hospital's request to test for the coronavirus, the man told Business Insider, because his condition wasn't severe enough to hospitalize him. The case highlights a major hurdle for containing the new coronavirus in the US: Testing capacities are still limited. Limited testing capacities mean cases like this can go undiagnosed In the hospital, the man said, health workers scanned his chest to check for pneumonia and ordered testing for 20 basic viruses. "She said, basically, if we didn't hospitalize you then you don't meet the criteria that's set by the CDC, which means we can't perform testing through the CDC," he said. The CDC had only tested about 470 people in the US for coronavirus as of Sunday, according to the agency's official count. Overnight, the CDC appears to have removed those testing numbers from its website. Alex Azar, secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, told ABC on Sunday that 3,600 Americans had been tested. "We're still dealing with a test that is limited in its availability, so we still have to prioritize by risk," Bela Matyas, the health officer in Solano County, California, said in a Thursday press conference. In New York city, 10 people have been tested for COVID-19 and another 22 have been tested elsewhere in the state. "In New York state, the person who tested positive was only the 32nd test we've done in this state. That is a national scandal," Matthew McCarthy, a Manhattan physician and an assistant professor of medicine at Cornell, told CNBC on Monday. 'I can't imagine I'm the only one' The man said he's been repeatedly calling the New York State Department of Health to ask if they've changed the criteria or decided to test him, but he has heard nothing from them. "I can't imagine I'm the only one coming back from one of those countries with minor flu-like symptoms," the man said, adding that he thinks New York health officials should have tested far more than eight people by Saturday. "It doesn't make any sense to me that we've only tested eight people. It doesn't make any sense. It's not possible unless there's other people like me who tried to get testing and have been denied testing, and just haven't spoken up about it.” Source | Create Website | Criar site | Crear sitio web | Créer un site Web