What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 20 November

COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 20 November: Top stories: India passes 9 million confirmed cases; Grim milestone in Mexico; new restrictions in the United States.

SNS gastou 54 milhões com testes à covid-19 feitos pelos laboratórios privados

SNS gastou 54 milhões com testes à covid-19 feitos pelos laboratórios privados: O Serviço Nacional de Saúde (SNS) gastou pelo menos 54 milhões de euros até agora em testes moleculares para detectar infecções pelo novo coronavírus realizados pelos laboratórios privados. Esta semana foi ultrapassada a fasquia dos quatro milhões de testes realizados desde o início da pandemia, 45% dos quais executados no sector público e uma percentagem semelhante no privado. Os restantes foram feitos em laboratórios de universidades.

What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 19 November

COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 19 November: Top stories: Vaccines boost; US deaths top 250,000; cases fall in France.

People Proving to Be Weakest Link for Apps Tracking COVID Exposure

People Proving to Be Weakest Link for Apps Tracking COVID Exposure: The problem starts with downloads. Stefano Tessaro calls it the “chicken-and-egg” issue: The system works only if a lot of people buy into it, but people will buy into it only if they know it works.

“Accuracy of the system ends up increasing trust, but it is trust that increases adoptions, which in turn increases accuracy,” Tessaro, a computer scientist at the University of Washington who was involved in creating that state’s forthcoming contact-tracing app, said in a lecture last month.

In other parts of the world, people are taking that necessary leap of faith. Ireland and Switzerland, touting some of the highest uptake rates, report more than 20% of their populations use a contact-tracing app.

Portugal has spent at least €54m on COVID-19 tests

Portugal has spent at least €54m on COVID-19 tests: Portugal’s National Health Service (SNS) has spent at least 54 million euros so far on tests, carried out by private laboratories, to detect COVID-19 infections, newspaper Publico revealed on Wednesday.

The central administration of the SNS  told the local newspaper that laboratories that have an agreement with the SNS had presented invoices amounting to almost 41.6 million euros between March and September. 

The remaining 12.4 million euros spent in October and during the first half of this month, resulted from an estimate carried out by Publico, based on tests carried out by laboratories and the percentage they claimed would be paid by the SNS.

According to Publico, over 4 million tests have been carried out since the start of the pandemic, with around 45% having been carried out in the public sector and a similar percentage in the private sector. The remaining tests were carried out in university laboratories.

Fauci’s Hierarchy of Safety During COVID

Take It From an Expert: Fauci’s Hierarchy of Safety During COVID:

Q: If you had a national plan for testing, what would it be?

Surveillance testing. Literally flooding the system with tests. Getting a home test that you could do yourself, that’s highly sensitive and highly specific. And you know why that would be terrific? Because if you decided that you wanted to have a small gathering with your mother-in-law and father-in-law and a couple of children, and you had a test right there. It isn’t 100%. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But the risk that you have — if everyone is tested before you get together to sit down for dinner — dramatically decreases. It might not ever be zero but, you know, we don’t live in a completely risk-free society.

No, soaring COVID-19 cases are not due to more testing

No, soaring COVID-19 cases are not due to more testing: High and rising test-positivity rates provide more evidence that COVID-19 is spreading uncontrollably around the country.

Test positivity can be calculated in two ways: as the percentage of all COVID-19 tests that come back positive, or, the percentage of people tested for active infection that return a positive result. For example, Iowa’s test-positivity rate of 37.2% between Oct. 26 and Nov. 9 implies that for every 100 people tested for COVID-19, 37 are positive.

Test positivity tells public health officials whether a testing program is casting a wide enough net to catch the majority of COVID-19 cases.