Pandemic has become one of my gaming groups favorite games. It’s a huge deal. Labs had to submit reports to three different agencies—state, county, and federal—all of which use different forms and require different information. Behind sealed bio-hazard doors, scientists race against time to sequence diseases, take samples and test cures. Dr. Sossaman has been able to work so proactively with his clinical colleagues because the lab had already had deep bonds with them. But as Dr. Nolte reviews the data, he’s left holding the existential bag: What does it mean? “Whatever is put in front of us,” Dr. Sossaman says. It’s phenomenal. I can tell you to some extent how well we compare with other platforms.” But months into the pandemic, “I honestly cannot tell you what the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of this test is.”, He unspools more questions in need of answers. EDIT: This review replaces a much smaller one I left from my mobile device. It does so by turning the curing of a disease from a card collection into a puzzle involving infection treatment and curing. He can report the analytical sensitivity and specificity “in excruciating detail,” he says. Oddly enough, it’s one she almost missed. Can your team work together in the lab to save humanity? Si ya tienes Draftosaurus, llévate el pack de cinco recintos por solo 0,25€ (hasta fin de existencias). “I’m looking at Nebraska, and it’s sucking canal water. “We continually seem to answer the same questions for people,” he says, with no trace of impatience. But concerns about politicization weigh heavily over testing, they say, as does the fact that individual states are charged with figuring out how to manage testing, sometimes in competition with one another. I'm a professional nerd...I work in a lab. Unfortunately, there are lives at stake here. Skip to main content. “They were very adamant that we were swimming in reagents, and I can tell you that outside of Omaha, nobody—not one lab—had reagents. “If it has to do with COVID testing, it will be approved at the highest level as soon as I present a cogent plan.” The importance of COVID-19 is one obvious reason for this loosening of purse strings, but she cites another factor as well. Behind sealed bio-hazard doors, scientists race against time to sequence diseases, take samples, and test cures. What I really like about the In the Lab expansion is it feels more cooperative, like more individuals are trying to work together to find the cure and it's less about trying to maneuver one person around the whole time trying to focus cards to one hand. An unexpected gift came from a large academic research institution, which has been producing batch volumes of viral transport media (“It’s a complicated recipe, so you might as well make a lot of it,” she says) and, as a public service, distributing it free of charge to labs, including hers. Karen Titus is CAP TODAY contributing editor and co-managing editor. Extend the On the Brink challenges with new Virulent Strain Events or the Worldwide Panic Mutation scenario. “To use precious lab resources appropriately, we should have a streamlined reporting mechanism to a single entity, presumably the state, as they have generalized authority and jurisdiction over public health,” she wrote in an email. Can your team work together in the lab to save humanity? You have a map of where some of the tests can be done. This on-demand webinar originally broadcast May 7, 2020. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been dragged into, We have a patient who tested positive at another lab who was sent here and tested negative. “We’ve made a little bit of a transition in our way of thinking. Dr. Nolte also has to figure out discordant results from outside labs. Hence the stream of studies filling his inbox that involve four patients and somehow conclude that saliva is better than an NP swab. Another must-have expansion for fans of Pandemic! She’s keeping an eye on innovative work being done by clinicians who’ve seen vast numbers of COVID-19 patients, including those in New York City. Dr. Fuhrman concurs that vendors are following the directives of the government, and that the process remains shrouded in mystery. It's fun and interesting and offers up fresh, new ways to play. For weeks, the only COVID-19 testing capacity was in Omaha. Not everything is the same, of course. Watch Now. Players can compete individually or on rival teams (when playing with four or six players). That’s where laboratory leaders said their labs were in early August when CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle convened members of the Compass Group on Zoom to share their pandemic experiences. Swab and saline? That will include reviewing chest x-rays and patients’ clinical course, then identifying a method to determine who’s positive independent of the test result. “It just keeps getting surprisingly worse,” says Susan Fuhrman, MD, president, CORPath, Department of Pathology and Laboratories, OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, Columbus. September 2020—Between a rock and a hard place. Are you really running these tests?” He suspects it reflects the tremendous pressure vendors are under to justify their own actions. Those who’ve spoken to CAP TODAY, on the record and off, are quick and careful to say they’re not talking about politics. “The other is the Realityville test of what’s out there.” As he listened to physicians on the federal level—whom he admires—talk about the ability for labs everywhere to perform COVID-19 testing early on, and the reports of reagents being widely distributed, he knew his colleagues in the state had a different story to tell. At the same time, she can’t starve her own system, either. MUSC had tested more than 6,000 individuals as June was drawing to a close, with a positivity rate of about two percent. Dr. Nolte pulls no punches when he considers the national scene. Positive samples are reflexively tested using an LDT spike protein assay. It would be a huge step to have a national database—“almost like a dashboard”—to monitor unused capacity and allow, say, Texas, to send testing to New York. The goal of this activity is the same as in the base game – finding cures for diseases – but this time in a new way. “If I want money, if I want space, the system will give me whatever I need,” she says. This time, there’s a whole new way to discover cures and get closer to winning the game. Do we need to be looking at host response? The only thing that is clear, he says, “is that there’s absolutely no national testing strategy. The search for transport media and swabs, not to mention reagents, continues. What’s wrong with your test?” The answer, of course, might be “Nothing.” Not every referral lab has earned his confidence, particularly those that have sprung up seemingly overnight.