Dear Kiran,

I have seen a few studies that are conducting testing in a random way and so far a large (if not all) are COVID-19 negative. That gives me hope that the disease is contained and community transmission has not spread nationally. But we need to act now, early interventions have a huge effect in saving lives down the road. We also need to monitor indicators of rise in respiratory illnesses. This can be done by grass root level surveillance, using community heath workers and placing hospitals, health care providers on high alert, as well as tracking insurance claims data in bigger metros and affluent populations. offering random test to a small fraction of respiratory illness cases across the nation might be a good proxy as tests are limited and we cannot test everyone. Testing suspected cases and chasing contacts of those exposed can work in the early phase based on what we learned from China and South Korea. Thanks for your thought. Bhramar