Scientists working for corona virus antidote.
Clinical microbiologist Lee Hyuk-min sets his alarm at 4:45 a.m. before beginning the day’s work at his home office: analyzing a chart of novel coronavirus test data, separating the positives from the negatives. He gets six batches of test results throughout the day, reviewing most of them at the hospital laboratory where he works in Seoul. ⠀
⠀
“It’s tough,” says Dr. Lee, who punches out by 11 p.m. but is typically woken up in the middle of the night to review even more, “but it’s tough for everyone.”⠀
⠀
One reason South Korea has managed to check the spread of the novel coronavirus and bring down its infection rate has been an efficient testing network that allowed it to quickly isolate those infected. The country has run nearly 300,000 tests, double that of Italy’s tally despite having less than a third of confirmed coronavirus cases. ⠀
⠀
Dr. Lee and others like him represent the final checkpoint in the South Korean system, a coordinated diagnostics operation that knits together 633 test sites and more than 100 laboratories nationwide.⠀
⠀
Though the U.S. is ramping up capacity, it has only screened about one-tenth of what South Korea has, based on the number of tests conducted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facilities and other public-health labs.⠀
0 Comments