The Challenges of COVID-19 Testing in Washington State

A strategy of containment was supposed to protect Washington State from the coronavirus. It didn’t. So what led to the first major outbreak of the pathogen in the United States?

Guests: Mike Baker, a Pacific Northwest correspondent for The New York Times and Bridget Parkhill, a woman whose 77-year-old mother is on lockdown inside a coronavirus-affected nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Background reading:

• A cruise ship off San Francisco has 21 sick passengers on board and is linked to California’s first death from the virus. In the Seattle area, schools have closed, tech workers have been told to work from home and a nursing facility is on lockdown. Here are the latest updates.
• Officials in California, Oregon and Washington State have said that some patients tested positive for the coronavirus without a known explanation for how they became ill, raising concerns that the virus may be spreading faster than previously thought.
• We spoke to six Americans with coronavirus. Here’s what they said about their experience while sick.

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