| For more than a month, the U.S. has had a shortage of Covid-19 tests. That shortfall—which contributed to a containment failure—will soon come to an end. What will follow is a surge in cases. In the coming week, the number of people diagnosed with the new coronavirus is going to skyrocket. "Diagnosed" is the key word. From that standpoint, the U.S. is at the same place where China was near the start of its epidemic. In the early days of the Wuhan outbreak, China had little testing capacity. As its ability to identify patients increased, cases began to rapidly add up. By all estimates, Covid-19 has been substantially underdetected in the U.S. population. New kits being rolled out by diagnostic giants like Thermo Fisher Scientific will be able to test millions of people a week. The increase in numbers will seem frightening, but at least part of the coming surge is revealing what was already there. The White House has said it's prioritizing test distribution to areas where there are already large numbers of known cases, and thus many undiagnosed patients likely to be discovered. Sometime next week, health officials expect to have caught up to a degree, and a more accurate picture of the spread of the coronavirus will begin to emerge. What matters most is what comes after that. To "flatten the curve" of the epidemic you need to know what the start of the curve actually looks like. As case counts become more accurate, epidemiologists will be able to better model the outbreak. Hospitals and health officials will be able to anticipate the burden on wards and ICU beds. And the U.S. will get a true starting point for the size of the crisis it's dealing with, and what it might cost to stop it. —Drew Armstrong
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