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Cathy O'Neil, Columnist

We Can’t Get Together Until Tests Get Better

More coronavirus tests won't be enough to stop social distancing. Better tests might be.

Still too slow.

Photographer: Ander Gillenea/AFP/Getty Images
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The debate about when and whether the world can reopen keeps coming back to testing. If only we could test everyone all the time, the logic goes, we could isolate the ill and everyone else could go back to school, work and life as we once knew it.

Sadly, that’s not quite right. The prerequisite for reopening is better tests, not just more tests.