WA State Senator John Braun (R) – We Need Much More Testing

State Senator John Braun represents Southwest Washington's 20th legislative district.  Braun is a republican and ranking member on the Senate Ways and Means committee and he periodically writes an email called Economic Sense..

His latest, the 28th Edition found HERE  lays out the unassailable case for more random and widespread testing across Washington in order to collect the data needed to formulate accurate and realistic Coronavirus influenced policy in our state.

From his latest - "To enact proper policies, one needs to know both how widespread  COVID-19 is among the population and, consequently, how deadly. If only a  small percent of the population has been exposed (and thus the fatality rate  is comparatively high), then the likelihood of a sizable outbreak and deaths  once policies are lifted is pretty high. If, instead, COVID-19 has already  reached a larger share of the population, then we know the fatality rate is  quite low, which calls into question the continuation of the 'Stay Home' and  business-closure policies"

The more you read the more sense it makes, including the acknowledgement that the University of Washington has the capability and capacity to quickly run such tests -IF-there were test samples to run.  Why isn't that a priority?

What does the Washington State Department of Health have to say about all this?  More from Braun's Economic Sense: "Some ​three months ​ after the first case in the state, ​two months ​ after a state  of emergency was declared, and ​one month ​ after a state shutdown,​​ the  Department of Health in Washington could not describe the state’s current  testing capability, the level of additional capacity it was aiming for or how  that capacity would come about.....if part of getting back to normal depends on waiting for massive  widespread testing to see if individuals presently have COVID-19, it sadly  appears we may all be waiting a good deal longer"

We've reached out to Senator Braun's office and we will have him on as a guest at 8:15 Thursday on the Morning News to talk about ways to kick start an expanded testing program.  Governor Inslee says "science" will drive his decisions on opening up the state.  So let's go do some science!.