How Puerto Rican Scientists Hacked The COVID-19 Response

In late February, the government of Puerto Rico was in denial over COVID-19. Top health officials were saying that the coronavirus would not reach the island—but the pandemic did arrive in early March. With hospitals that are still recovering from hurricanes and earthquakes, there was concern that the spread of COVID-19 would overwhelm a fragile health system. To prevent that from happening, a group of Puerto Rican scientists banded together to ramp up testing. In this episode, two scientists show us how Puerto Rico went from one of the U.S. jurisdictions with the least testing to over 100,000 COVID tests.