#100 Million Tests !
By Dan Murphy
I recently received an email from former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who ran for President and whose failed campaign I supported and volunteered for. The email linked me to a YouTube video from Bloomberg, urging New Yorkers to stay and home, wash our hands and continue with social distancing if we have to go out. We have all heard this again and again, and I was hoping for more from Mayor Mike, who likes to use data to solve problems.
Last week, I watched a CNBC Interview with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has spent the last decade of his life using his billions, through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to eliminate viruses and unclean drinking water in underdeveloped countries around the world. Gates used the interview to take us through his knowledge of the Coronavirus pandemic, and the decision move his foundations work to finding a COVID-19 vaccine and a therapeutic.
After the 20-minute interview, I found Bill Gates to be the American with the most knowledge, experience and resources needed to fight this pandemic and bring all of our families back to normalcy. If I were the President, I thought, I would summon both Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates to The White House, and appoint both as co-chairs of the Coronavirus Task Force, with their primary goal to come up with a uniform COVID-19 test for 100 Million Americans, with results available within 24 hours.
The concern for many of us in the Metropolitan-NYC region about the pandemic is –could we have COVID-19 but are not showing any symptoms? Or was that bad, flu-like cold we had a few weeks ago Coronavirus? Are we at danger of infecting our families staying at home with us? Or do we now carry an immunity or antibody?
I have not blamed President Donald Trump, nor Governor Andrew Cuomo, for the virus and the temporary destruction of our lives, finances and our futures here in Westchester. My blame is focused on the Chinese Communist Party, CCP, for lying to the world about the virus, but that’s a conversation for another time.
But I do want my government to come up with a uniform COVID -19 test that all of us can take, which can provide a result within 24 hours. After 30 days under stay at home, is that too much to ask?
Bill Gates talked about the way that the current system of testing in the USA is “completely unmanaged.” “You have someone without symptoms who is being tested every day in some wealthy community, but you can have a health care worker waiting 3 days to get tested. Anytime the queue is over 24 hours, that’s complete mismanagement because the value of the result is far less worthwhile when you’re not getting it very, very quickly. The best case is to get the result before you become infectious or symptomatic, so you can act in a way so that you don’t infect anyone else. The natural thing would be to create a unified system like South Korea, but we haven’t gotten any interest from the federal level. “
Until we have what Gates called, “a quick turnaround and priority testing.., we will be in big trouble,” adding “If those testing innovations get into place by early June, we will be looking into some type of opening up then.”
I think that I speak for all of the American people when I say I don’t want to wait until early June to go back to work and try to rebuild my small business and career, only to find out that our government still does not have what we need, a unified, quick turnaround, priority test for every American to take.
Gates made some other predictions. A therapeutic drug or antibody, that could be taken from patients who tested positive but have recovered, will be available in 4-6 months. A vaccine will take 18 months.
Today, April 13, 2020, I am calling for all Americans to join my campaign –#100 Million COVID-19 Tests to Save America. I am calling on Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates to lead that effort. Some simple math tells me that 100 million tests, at a cost of $100 per test, would total $10 Billion. At the rate we are printing money, and bailing out every American, small business, and large corporation, that’s a drop in the bucket.
More important, lets put our future’s in the hands of two great Americans who I trust more than anyone to do the right thing and get the job done. Bill Gates and Mike Bloomberg, please save our country.
