Radio Corona, May 14: The chaos of covid-19 testing data in the US

In this week’s episode of Radio Corona, we explore why the US has no idea how to manage all the testing data it’s collecting. 

Last week, reporter Neel Patel wrote about how the US’s decentralized public health system means there are no common standards for reporting testing data. That could create chaos in attempts to fight the pandemic, especially when it comes to making decisions about when and how to ease lockdown restrictions.

On Radio Corona, Gideon Lichfield, editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review, will discuss the problem of testing data and how it might be fixed with Neel and one of his sources—Erich Huang, assistant dean of bioinformatics at Duke University.

We will broadcast the interview here on this page on May 14th at 4:30pm US Eastern time, as well as on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Twitch. As usual, you’ll be able to submit questions of your own here. And check out previous episodes of Radio Corona on topics like vaccine trials, drug research, working from home, the economic impacts of covid, pandemic preparedness, and more.