quote:

It's Sunday I'm taking a day off from the Covid.
Getting about time for breakfast and a bloody mary.

I'll go with more banjo!

Thank you for posting that video! Love the song and that version is particularly appealing to me!

Nevada Gov Sisolak banned (hydroxy)chloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, ostensibly over concern of hoarders stockpiling the medicine and causing shortages for patients who use the drug for other ailments like Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis

But,

According to sources at the drug maker, Concordia Pharmaceuticals Inc, Nevada prisons ordered a large number of their anti-malaria Hydroxychloroquine drug under the name, Plaquenli.

After Sisolak’s ban went into effect, the State Prison hoarded the drug in a mass just in case they had break out.

Gov. Sisolak refused to reverse his order even after the FDA issued an emergency order earlier this week approving the drug for use against COVID 19.


https://townhall.com/tipsheet/...to-the-drug-n2566360

There's not a doctor, nor pharmacist that I know that would heed that order if they felt the drug appropriate for care of CV19.

She is an amazing talent. I love this tribute to her dad...
https://www.bing.com/videos/se...US%26setlang%3den-US

https://www.foxnews.com/sports...virus-bout-at-age-73

quote:

Tom Dempsey, legendary NFL kicker, dead after coronavirus bout at age 73
Dom Calicchio



Tom Dempsey, a retired NFL kicker long known for a 63-yard field goal he kicked in 1970, died Saturday night in Louisiana after a bout with coronavirus, according to reports. He was 73.

Dempsey contracted the virus in March while a resident of the Lambeth House retirement home in New Orleans, where at least 15 patients have died after being stricken with the virus, NOLA.com reported.

As of early Sunday, Louisiana had more than 12,400 confirmed cases of the virus, ranking No. 5 among U.S. states. The New Orleans area has recorded 153 deaths.

Dempsey, who was born without toes on his right foot and without fingers on his right hand, wore a specially made shoe during his NFL career.

His history-making kick for the New Orleans Saints against the Detroit Lions broke the previous NFL record by seven yards. It has since been matched by five kickers – and broken only by Matt Prater of the Denver Broncos, who kicked a 64-yarder in 2013.

At the time, Dempsey’s kick helped gain publicity for the Saints, who were then an expansion club playing in only their fourth season.

Dempsey played two seasons for the team, moving on to play for the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, Houston Oilers and Buffalo Bills in an 11-year professional career.

Born in Milwaukee, Dempsey grew up in California and played college football at Palomar College near San Diego. He signed with the Saints as an undrafted player in 1969.

After retiring from football, Dempsey and his family returned to New Orleans, where he worked as an oilfield salesman, a high school football coach and a car-dealership manager, NOLA.com reported.

In 2012, he disclosed he was battling dementia, the news outlet reported.

Dempsey is survived by a wife, three children, a sister and three grandchildren, NOLA.com reported.

Amazing he kicked without toes and a shoe with a flat front.

My father in law is in a care facility that had a break out. Just as this was discovered about 2 weeks ago he was having respiratory issues and was transported to the hospital. He tested negative, was treated, and released back to the facility.

Since it had been discovered a number of protocols were put into place at the facility to isolate the infected from the rest. That included all residents being quarantined to their rooms, same staff assigned to the same group of residents, food being delivered, etc.

We got the call last night that he has now tested positive. If he develops symptoms he likely will not survive, but so far they say he is completely asymptomatic.

https://www.washingtontimes.co...-search-origin-dead/

American scientists are actively working to learn the origin of the deadly coronavirus behind the pandemic now spreading around the world, but say a lack of Chinese virus samples has hampered research.

Officials and experts in virology and epidemics tell The Washington Times that researchers need to learn the origins of the virus to find treatments and vaccines and to better prepare for future pandemics.

Robert G. Darling, a medical doctor and expert on biological weapons formerly with the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, said it is crucial that researchers find out where the virus originated and how it spread.

“It is imperative that we identify the origin of the SARS CoV-2 virus,” said Dr. Darling, chief medical officer of Patronus Medical.

“The Chinese almost certainly know but they have not shared it. By learning its origin it will better help us understand the biology of the virus and how it behaves.”

A senior State Department official said questions about the origin of the virus need to be answered and noted recent published reports about the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses China’s sole high-security virus research center, have raised questions about whether the virus may have leaked.

“It’s the only Level 4 lab in the PRC, built in response to SARS in 2003, so the question is a valid one,” the official said.

However, the official added that “until we are absolutely certain where this is coming from, it would be irresponsible to put something out about lab origins” of the virus.

China’s government has been largely silent on the origin of the virus, while saying the virus made a natural jump from bats to humans or from bats to another wild animal and then to humans.

Recently, Chinese government spokesmen have called for scientific inquiries into the origin of the virus but have not disclosed whether the government is conducting such a study. The Chinese have asked for scientific inquiries into whether the virus was created by the United States — a charge U.S. officials have vehemently dismissed as disinformation.

Authorities in Beijing say the virus outbreak began at a wild animal market in Wuhan, based on reports that many of those first infected worked at the market.

But the skeptics point to a Chinese scientific study that also reported that some early victims had no connection to the market.

They also note the emergence of new insights into the virus that have emerged in recent weeks both from Chinese state media and unofficial online reports, including a censored scientific paper by two Chinese researchers.

The two scientists, Xiao Botao and Lei Xiao, are with the state-run universities in Guangzhou and Wuhan. They argue in the paper that the virus may have escaped from a laboratory near the market.

As for the official Chinese government explanation of a natural transmission, they said it is possible “yet little proof has been reported.”

The researchers said the new virus is very similar to a bat coronavirus found in horseshoe bats, and that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control located close to the suspect market was studying bat viruses.

The center “hosted animals in laboratories for research purpose, one of which was specialized in pathogens collection and identification,” they stated.

The Wuhan laboratory reported Chinese horseshoe bats are natural reservoirs for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus(SARS-CoV) behind the 2002 pandemic and could explain the bat virus research.

“In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan,” the scientists said.

Another clue appeared on YouTube from a Western blogger in China, Matthew Tye, known by the handle “Laowhy86,” who posts frequently about travels and events in China and has 435,000 subscribers.

“I made a very important discovery to finally put an end to the speculation from the Chinese government that the #Coronaviruscame from the USA, Italy, or anywhere else,” he tweeted Wednesday.

Mr. Tye said in a video posted that day that he had new details about the virus’ origin. Information obtained through open-source research identified a worker at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Huang Yanling, as the suspected “Patient Zero” for the outbreak in Wuhan.

A U.S. official with access to intelligence said without elaborating that the YouTube video is accurate. Mr. Tye could not be reached.

The laboratory issued a statement denying Ms. Huang was the locus of the epidemic. Her photo and biography were removed from the institute website, where they had been posted earlier along with other researchers.

Screen captures of internet postings from the Wuhan Institute of Virology included one for a job opening in November that sought researchers to study links between “coronavirus and bats.” A second job posting on Dec. 24 revealed the Institute was looking to hire multiple researchers. It stated, “We have discovered a new and terrible virus and would like to recruit people to deal with it.”

The YouTube video then mentioned that Mr. Xiao of the South China University of Technology had identified Ms. Huang as Patient Zero who became infected during a laboratory accident and later died. The report said the virus was transmitted to the public by staffers who attended her funeral.

Kelvin Droegemeier, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, asked scientists with the National Academy of Science on Feb. 6 to “rapidly examine” the origins of the new virus.

In a response letter the same day, the academy said the closest known relative of the new virus appeared to be “a virus identified from bat-derived samples collected in China.”

“The experts informed us that additional genomic sequence data from geographically- and temporarily-diverse viral samples are needed to determine the origin and evolution of the virus,” said Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Science in the letter.

“Samples collected as early as possible in the outbreak in Wuhan and samples from wildlife would be particularly valuable,” the letter stated.

The letter said Bai Chunli, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was willing to share virus samples and was “working” with the University of Texas Medical Branch for sharing the virus.

However, Kenneth Plante, director of the virus repository at the Texas university, said China refused to provide any samples needed for studying the virus origin because of what he said was the “political climate.”

Details about the virus will help prepare for the next pandemic and how to develop countermeasures, Fort Detrick’s Dr. Darling said.

Mr. Droegemeier’s Feb. 6 letter cited a disputed, pre-publication scientific draft paper by Indian scientists that suggested the virus may have been manipulated in a laboratory, saying that highlighted the need to learn the origin.

The Indian scientific paper was withdrawn for further study but concluded that “taken together, our findings suggest unconventional evolution of 2019-nCoV that warrants further investigation.”

A second State Department official said there is a lot of public information already on where the virus originated but that the U.S. government has not attempted to address the issue.

“In terms of litigating where the virus was born, that is not something that we have tried to do here because there’s just no way here for us to know,” the second official said.

“Instead we’re focusing on the known facts. … We know the outbreak originated in China and the Chinese government was the first to know. And because of those two facts, which by the way have been acknowledged by the WHO and the Chinese government, [Chinese government officials] have a special responsibility to be transparent.”

Chinese officials have pointed to U.S. research at the ScrippsResearch Institute and published in journal Nature Medicine that concluded, “We can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes.”

That same study, however, states that because China has worked on bat coronaviruses at Level 2 security laboratories, and that the SARS virus has leaked from Chinese labs in the past that the virus could have escaped.

“We must therefore examine the possibility of an inadvertent laboratory release of SARS-CoV-2,” the Nature Medicine study says.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
We got the call last night that he has now tested positive. If he develops symptoms he likely will not survive, but so far they say he is completely asymptomatic.

I'm sorry, a1abdj. Hopefully, he remains asymptomatic. Prayers up.

That's terrible news. I will be thinking of you and he and hoping for the best

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:


We got the call last night that he has now tested positive. If he develops symptoms he likely will not survive, but so far they say he is completely asymptomatic.

Not good news but hope for the best. It’s not necessarily a death sentence though as it affects everyone differently.....my mom, age 94 and not in good health tested positive and is now fever free and doing well....

Agreed. I know we have a member who has had friends get it, I believe in New Jersey, but knew it was only a matter of time before it struck closer to home given how large and diverse our membership is

My wife was reading an article that is circulating amongst her colleagues that said it now appears that a fair number of cases remain asymptomatic for the entire course of the disease but unfortunately are still carriers and infectious during that time. So people who don’t feel or look sick, and never get sick, are passing the disease to other people who then can’t figure out how they got it. More reasoning to socially distance yourself. Hopefully your dad is in that category and remains asymptomatic.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
We got the call last night that he has now tested positive. If he develops symptoms he likely will not survive, but so far they say he is completely asymptomatic.

I'm sorry, a1abdj. Hopefully, he remains asymptomatic. Prayers up.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
My father in law is in a care facility that had a break out. Just as this was discovered about 2 weeks ago he was having respiratory issues and was transported to the hospital. He tested negative, was treated, and released back to the facility.

Since it had been discovered a number of protocols were put into place at the facility to isolate the infected from the rest. That included all residents being quarantined to their rooms, same staff assigned to the same group of residents, food being delivered, etc.

We got the call last night that he has now tested positive. If he develops symptoms he likely will not survive, but so far they say he is completely asymptomatic.

I’m sorry to hear this...why do you say he would likely not survive? Does he have pre-existing conditions?

There have been a lot of comparisons drawn between the H1N1 outbreak of 2009 and the contrast between the social and political response to H1N1 and this Chinese virus. As we are now getting further into this outbreak there is more data to compare the two. Perhaps enough to warrant the difference in response.

H1N1:

First confirmed US fatality 4/27/2009

By April 2010 an estimated 60 million infections resulted in 12,500 deaths over the first year after the first confirmed death.

Covid-19:

First confirmed US fatality 2/29/2020

At the current rate we will have 12,500 confirmed deaths on Tuesday 4/7/2020, 2 months and 1 week from the first confirmed death.

Confirmed cases will be about 400,000 at that point. Most people would agree this is a fraction of the actual infections. If there are 100 infected for every confirmed case that would be 40 million cases in about 3 months.

We may never know the true number of infections but it's clear that this Chinese virus is either a lot more deadly or spreads a hell of a lot faster or both.

We went from 48 to 46 cases in my county. At first, I thought it was because our first case from 3/7 was finally cleared and we had one that passed away. However, both of these are still on our list. Missing from our list is the only non-Florida resident we had on our list, which leads me to believe our cases have gone down by 2 because two left the county.

I do wish they would show the number of active cases.

On another note, the cashier at the local grocery store wiped her nose with her gloved hand while she handled my groceries. About half the shoppers were wearing masks. I think I'm going to as well the next time I go. I'm thinking a Zoro mask and oven mitts, or dive mask and snorkel with a K&N air filter duct taped to the end.

Next to the last paragraph explains why he may have been canned.


Ousted USS Roosevelt Navy captain tests positive for coronavirus

https://www.washingtonexaminer...tive-for-coronavirus



The Navy captain, who was removed from his command of a coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier, has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.

Two Naval Academy classmates of Capt. Brett Crozier confirmed the diagnosis to the New York Times. Crozier started showing symptoms before his ouster on Thursday, the classmates said. It’s unclear when he was tested for the virus, and he’s being quarantined at Naval Base Guam.

Crozier was fired after the leak of a letter he sent to Navy leaders in which he pleaded for help in containing the virus as it spread throughout the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Sunday that there were 155 confirmed cases of the coronavirus among sailors aboard the aircraft carrier. He added that more than half of the ship had been tested, and there have not been any hospitalizations.

“The letter was sent over not-secure, unclassified email even though the ship possesses some of the most sophisticated equipment in the fleet,” Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Thursday. “It wasn’t just sent up the chain of command, it was copied to a broad array of other people.”

Videos shared on social media on Friday showed hundreds of sailors aboard the ship cheering for Crozier as he disembarked.

quote:

I do wish they would show the number of active cases.

county by county data is available at

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

what county are you in ?

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
The Navy captain, who was removed from his command of a coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier, has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.

real hero, that one, eh.

Yes, he deserved to be canned based on this. I suspect the other recipients also weren’t people the Navy would want to see his letter. Plus, the number of infected sailors on the Roosevelt, or any navy ship, directly impacts its readiness to complete its mission, something we <probably> don’t want actively advertised to just anyone

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Next to the last paragraph explains why he may have been canned.
.

“The letter was sent over not-secure, unclassified email even though the ship possesses some of the most sophisticated equipment in the fleet,” Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Thursday. “It wasn’t just sent up the chain of command, it was copied to a broad array of other people.”

The cases where I work (Residents not employees) has gone up by a factor of 5 in the last week. There's one hospital we chose not to go to during our last tour because they were overwhelmed with cases to the point they had no where left to put them so they were in the hallways and everywhere else.

I haven't followed all of this thread but did a quick forum search and hadn't seen this mentioned (although sdy posted about a different Utah based company doing phlegm/ sputum testing).

I just caught a radio interview with the CEO of a microbiology testing lab that has developed, and been approved, for using saliva to test for COVID-19. The tech is fresh from the lab, although based on previously approved use. Supposedly as, or more, accurate than nasal swabs, shows a more accurate viral load count, and allows for faster testing.

The lab is allowed to conduct public testing under their current federal approvals, but also hopes to have FDA approval in the next day or so.

Customer orders test kit, company overnights it, customer uses kit at home, customer overnights sample back to lab= lab results within 24 hours.

Kit costs $125, but the CEO mentioned a coupon code that will bring the cost to $99.

When asked, the CEO said he would like to be able to bill insurance companies for the test but doesn't want to risk having a claim denied 6 months down the road. The lab will provide documentation with results so that customers can try to file a claim on their own.

They have the current capacity to do 10K tests/ day and expect to ramp up to 14-15K but currently only have a customer test base of 1K/ day, so they appear to be ramped up and ready to test.

With Sputum Test for SARS-CoV-2, MicroGen Dx Aims to Challenge Quest, LabCorp

Apr 03, 2020 | Kelsy Ketchum

NEW YORK – Although hundreds of labs across the US have been providing testing for SARS-CoV-2, Quest Diagnostics and Laboratory Corporation of America are the industry's leaders and have provided hundreds of thousands of tests.

But MicroGenDx CEO Rick Martin thinks they've dropped the ball – and believes his lab can do better. "People assume that LabCorp or Quest … because they're the biggest labs, they would be the most proficient at setting up for large scale testing or molecular," Martin said. "They're simply not."

Citing statistics from the California Department of Public Health reporting more than 57,400 people in the state still have pending test results, Martin noted that the backlog could have serious consequences for patients, including potential false negatives. "If you do a nasopharyngeal swab and you think that RNA's going to last on that swab forever, it's not," Martin said. "So, you're going to get a lot of false negatives."

He added that MicroGenDx has talked to patients with "all the symptoms" of the SARS-CoV-2 virus who received a negative result from LabCorp, only to be found positive after they were retested at his lab.

In a recent statement, Quest acknowledged a backlog that resulted from "a sharp influx of test orders that continued to outpace our growing capacity." It noted that for several days after it launched its test, only its lab in San Juan Capistrano, California performed SARS-CoV-2 testing, and added that much of its testing was based on its laboratory-developed test, which was "less suited to high-throughput environments."

The Secaucus, New Jersey-based lab company added it has reduced its backlog 28 percent since March 25, from 160,000 tests to 115,000 tests as of Wednesday.

LabCorp didn't respond to requests for comment.

MicroGenDx's's secret to providing faster results is offering testing with another type of sampling: sputum or saliva. The Orlando, Florida-based company developed a SARS-CoV-2 test based on the protocols of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention test, which was issued Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration in February. MicroGenDx then designed three primers for their laboratory-developed test, and submitted validation data to the FDA this week under the agency's EUA guidance. Martin said that he expects EUA to be issued for the test by next week.

The firm is also seeking FDA approval for the test. Although the company's MicroGenDx COVID-19 KEY test is a laboratory-developed test and doesn't technically need to be approved by the FDA, Martin said MicroGenDx still wants FDA authorization because healthcare professionals often want an FDA seal of approval.

Right now, MicroGenDx is the only commercial laboratory in the US offering sputum testing for SARS-CoV-2. Other firms and organizations, including the New England Biological Institute, are working on sputum tests for the virus, but Quest and LabCorp for the most part only accepting nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swabs. LabCorp has also been accepting nasopharyngeal or orpharyngeal aspirates or washes, and bronchoalveolar lavage.

MicroGenDx's PCR test works with nasopharyngeal swabs or sputum samples and runs on the Roche LightCycler instrument. Currently, MicroGenDx's CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited lab, which is located in Lubbock, Texas, has nine Roche instruments and can run 1,000 tests in one cycle for a total of up to 10,000 a day. Martin noted that the lab has moved to three shifts and may soon be able to perform 14,000-15,000 tests per day. Despite this capacity, however, Martin added that in the first few days of testing, the lab was only receiving enough samples to run 400 to 500 tests a day. Now they've topped 1,000 per day, but "we're sitting at capacity, and it's a shame," he said.

MicroGenDx was inspired to validate the test for sputum and saliva due to the nationwide shortage of nasopharyngeal swabs. Both validations had 100 percent sensitivity and 100 percent specificity, according to Nick Sanford, the company's laboratory section director. The company also validated sterile saline as a transfer media, due to the low supply of viral transport media.

The sputum samples have been performing much better than the swabs, Martin said, because the viral particle load on the nasopharyngeal swabs was 3.5 million particles of SARS-CoV-2, whereas the viral load on sputum was 21 million particles. MicroGenDx's test has a limit of detection of 283 particles, Sanford noted.

"If you think about it, it's logical," Sanford said. "It's an airborne droplet coming out of your nose and your mouth. The fact that anybody thinks a nasopharyngeal is required to get a diagnosis, I think is just because that's what the CDC validated first and everybody took that and ran with it."

The advantage of using sputum or saliva over a nasopharyngeal swab is the increased sample volume and the potential availability for more targets, said William Abrams, an adjunct professor at New York University's School of Dentistry. "It depends on the quantity of viral particles present in the collected sample," Abrams said. "It's likely that if the virus is actively shedding, I think are you will see it’s footprint in saliva."

Part of the difficulty with sputum testing for SARS-CoV-2 is that patients with symptoms don't have productive coughs and forcing them to cough something up could spread viral particles in the air and endanger the healthcare professional taking the sample. MicroGenDx decided to try testing patients' saliva too, and noticed that saliva often had just as many, if not more, viral particles of the virus.

"If you're trying to extract RNA, if you're trying to get it out of mucus materials, it's more difficult," Martin said. "But saliva is a lot cleaner, so you're going to get a higher load of the viral RNA out of saliva than trying to get it out of the mucus material."

Another potential issue with sputum is its thickness due to mucins, said Abrams. The increased viscosity could cause difficulty preparing the sample for extraction, he added. There's also potential for higher variability in saliva samples due to a patient’s saliva inadequacy, so Abrams said it would be up to the company to address that variability.

The lab is conducting paired sample analysis to continue verifying the validity of saliva samples and having patients submit second samples of either a swab or sputum that they didn't submit before, Sanford said. MicroGenDx is also considering time course studies to see how far after symptom onset the virus can be detected, he added.

While MicroGenDx may be the only commercial lab offering sputum-based testing for the coronavirus, several companies have developed sputum- or saliva-based testing for SARS-CoV-2. PerkinElmer's New Coronavirus Nucleic Acid Detection Kit, which can detect SARS-CoV-2 in sputum, plasma, or serum samples as well as oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal swabs and bronchoalveolar lavage, received EUA from the FDA last month. Meanwhile, Primer Design, a Novacyt subsidiary, has its Genesig real-time PCR Coronavirus (COVID-19) CE-IVD assay, which is validated for swabs and sputum as well, and Mologic is developing a saliva-based assay to detect coronavirus antigens.

Developing its own test has also helped the lab improve turnaround time for results, Martin said. "Because we're not using the standard kits, we've been able to stockpile our reagents and master mix and the things we need for our test," he noted. Right now, MicroGenDx is delivering a 24-hour turnaround time for SARS-CoV-2 testing, compared to Quest's 2 to 3-day turnaround.

The test is not covered by insurance and patients will have to pay $125 out of pocket for the SARS-CoV-2 test. MicroGenDx will provide an invoice for patients to consult with their health plans. "I would love to be able to take insurance and file a claim, but I'm not taking the risk to file a Humana claim and get it denied in six months," Martin added.

Besides its SARS-CoV-2 assay, the lab offers other tests, including a rapid test for mycobacterium launched in February. The Acid Fast Bacilli (AFB) panel is a two-step PCR and next-generation sequencing assay for identifying four main mycobacteria species: Mycobacterium avium, Mycobacterium intercellulare, Mycobacterium abscessus, and Mycobacterium masiliensis.

The PCR-based panel for the four species is run on the Roche LightCycler and has same-day results. It can be followed up with comprehensive NGS, using the Illumina Miseq platform with results in three days. The NGS test can identify any other mycobacterium species, Martin said.

Later this year, depending on how long the current pandemic lasts, Martin said the company is looking to add biomarkers for white blood cell count and C-reactive protein in its NGS test, mainly for orthopedic samples.

The company also has a quantitative PCR-based panel and NGS assay based on targeted 16S sequencing that identifies common microbes. The PCR panel can determine 17 microbes and resistance factors that can determine resistance to eight classes of antibiotics, and the NGS panel is used to more comprehensively analyze present microbes.

While the company is still offering its complete suite of tests, SARS-CoV-2 is a primary focus for MicroGenDx, as it is for the rest of the world. "I just want the world to know the fact that we don't need to be in a search for nasopharyngeal swabs," Martin said. "We're going to have evidence to show that phlegm, saliva, mucus in your mouth is going to be loaded with the COVID-19 virus, therefore allowing for easier testing."