Testing 1-2-3
There’s nothing quite like testing to establish whether or not you have Covid-19. I suppose you could go to a “psychic” to find out. But since “psychics” aren’t healthcare professionals (at least, I hope they’re not) you might be running the risk of infecting them too.
If it weren’t for that pesky old testing thingy, Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo would have nothing to worry about. While standing at a podium emblazoned with the words — I’m not making this up — “EARLY TREATMENT SAVES LIVES,” Ladapo said “We’re going to be working to unwind the sort of testing psychology that our federal leadership has managed, unfortunately, to get most of the country in.”
In other words, Florida’s chief medical scientist advocates that good old standard of therapeutic medical regimens, the just-close-your-eyes-and-it will-go-away approach. If only the rest of the country did that it would cut in half the number of Covid cases in the United States overnight. At least, I think that’s what he means.
I have no idea what alternative there is to testing to find out who is infected with Covid and who isn’t, and neither does Joseph Ladapo. What he’s trying to do is politicise Covid and blame it on Joe Biden. When you take something scientific and try to make it political it never works.
It reminds me of what the Nazis tried to do when they talked about “Jewish science.” There is no such thing as Jewish science. There is just science. Just as there is no such thing as Republican science, just as there is no such thing as Democrat science. There’s just science. And science tells us that testing is the best weapon we can use against the spread of Covid 19. After all, if you don’t test someone you can’t isolate them and keep them from infecting others if they tested Covid-19 positive, right?
It’s sad that I have to explain this to Florida’s top “medical scientist,” especially since I’m not a medical scientist. It is an embarrassment to the state of Florida that a man as ignorant as Joseph Ladapo is its chief medical spokesman. It’s yet another example of why ignorance is lethal.
There are a million stories of Republican stupidity in the naked country called the United States of America. This has been another one. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.