States with surges should return to ‘phase one’ guidelines, Birx says
As coronavirus cases in Arizona continue to surge, Mayor Kate Gallego says Phoenix is facing “a huge testing shortage.”
“People have been in line for eight hours in a hot car while they ache, waiting for a test,” she said. “We are five months in in the United States of America. People who want a test should not have to wait that long.”
Gallego says there is a need for low-barrier testing. She requested the federal government and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for mass testing sites in Phoenix, but that request has been denied.
“I believe a testing surge could help us with a backlog, and we also need help processing those tests. People are having to wait more than a week to get results. It is critical health information that they need to live their daily lives, she said. “We need our federal government to partner with us. I am taking any city resources we can and putting them towards testing. We have librarians and parks workers who are helping with testing, but their force and efficacy could be magnified if we had specialized medical experts who know about testing.”
William Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor, claimed that Arizona is implementing a crisis standard of care, which means, “if you’re old, you get sent home without care and you die.”
“Unfortunately, our medical professionals don’t have the resources they need and so they are being asked to make difficult decisions,” Gallego said, responding to Haseltine’s comments. She emphasized that people experiencing emergency conditions such as a heart attack should still go to the emergency room and that they will receive care.
“There is the ability to care for individuals, but we are not meeting the standards of care in all cases that we want. We’ve been very stretched with intensive care beds,” she explained.
Medical professionals are exhausted and asking for reinforcements, while warning that “the worst is yet to come,” Gallego says.
