Israeli Professor Shows Virus Follows Fixed Pattern

[Dashinka 24,629]

3 hours ago, OriZ said:

Sure you can. You can compare Italy and Spain pre-measures to after them. Same with NY. Even Sweden, while it may be showing a similar trend, has double the number of cases as Norway and Denmark(and 4 times the cases Finland has), is adding new ones at a rate of 5% per day vs 3% or lower in Norway, Finland and Denmark, all 3 of which took more drastic measures. 

 

Testing was, and still is, probably one of the most important things. Social distancing, without big government, is also important, if people take this seriously. However, most didn't so they needed to be shook a bit. Maybe now they'll continue practicing it even after restrictions are removed. I think for many it really took putting the fear of god in them.

 

I want to add something about testing - when I say testing I don't mean lets test 10% more than we do. I really, really think we should be testing at least 1 million people per day. Now, you can say that's not realistic but many countries are ramping up testing. Israel is getting ready to test 30,000 people per day. As a percent of the population, it's equal to around 1 million in the US. That's an average of only 20,000 per state, less than Israel would be testing(of course, in a small state like vt, it would be much lower than that, while in a state like CA, much higher). I really think if we ramped up testing to that level we could survive just fine with very few other measures. We can split it into half even - 500,000 tests on symptomatic patients ranging from the most mild to more severe, right now only the more severe are tested. and 500,000 which would be totally random, like Iceland does it. Or it doesn't even have to be totally random...you could test more people in areas that are harder hit, to try and prevent a large outburst. etc.

I have never said don’t do anything.  I am all in favor of social distancing, wearing masks especially when one is sick, practicing good hygiene, etc. regardless of the micro organism circulating. In fact I do practice this every flu season even though we have vaccines and therapies. My only beef is with the government forcing these things in a nanny state mentality, and introducing other factors that will lead to even more death.  

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

3 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Ain't gonna test anywhere near 330-whatever million Americans.

And someone testing negative on Tuesday could go positive on Friday.

Exactly what I warned my wife.

 

Except it was about Taco Tuesday and needing to buy more febreeze by Friday.

[OriZ 3,157]

11 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Ain't gonna test anywhere near 330-whatever million Americans.

And someone testing negative on Tuesday could go positive on Friday.

And the more undetected cases you have, the higher the chance of that happening.

 

This has worked well for South Korea, it's working well for Iceland and other places. Iceland started testing a month before they had their first confirmed case, and they have found that at least 50% of cases are totally asymptomatic.

 

There are other plans out there, like the one by Paul Romer, that are much more extreme. He wants to test 7% of the population per day, meaning everyone would be tested roughly once every 2 weeks. That, even to me seems excessive

[yuna628 9,686]

11 minutes ago, OriZ said:

And the more undetected cases you have, the higher the chance of that happening.

 

This has worked well for South Korea, it's working well for Iceland and other places. Iceland started testing a month before they had their first confirmed case, and they have found that at least 50% of cases are totally asymptomatic.

 

There are other plans out there, like the one by Paul Romer, that are much more extreme. He wants to test 7% of the population per day, meaning everyone would be tested roughly once every 2 weeks. That, even to me seems excessive

Does a person like Paul Romer account for the fact the said test is not always accurate and tosses out false negatives? It's to the point now my Dad was only given a test because he presented to the ER with weird symptoms that COVID could potentially cause, got a negative, the doctors don't trust the negative but protocol tells them they cannot retest (waste another kit) unless the patient is practically dying. So they treat you like you have COVID because there's nothing that gives them confidence either way.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

13 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

And how do you propose labs that are currently testing 11-13,000 per day in the US make that leap to 1,000,000 tests per day?

 

  Same way we test flu. Unlike PCR,  serology testing is not complicated and takes minutes. If it's like the flu kits, one person can do 50 tests in an hour. Right now we send people home because they don't have anything to do. Capacity is not maxed because of labor shortage. They just need to start producing and distributing the tests. There is no reason they won't be able to do that.

 

   Validating the initial tests was the hard part. Mass producing the kits shouldn't be. They make millions of flu kits every year, they should be able to do the same for Covid-19.

[TBoneTX 45,571]

3 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

Mass producing the kits

Thought I heard that Abbott is already doing this.  If true, that's a good thing.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

6 minutes ago, TBoneTX said:

Thought I heard that Abbott is already doing this.  If true, that's a good thing.

 

   IIRC, I have seen about 40 companies working on kits. Many of the names I have never heard of before this month, which is a little concerning. Abbott is reliable and has been around forever. I hope they can scale production to supply enough. From what I heard, the initial test we were validating had several issues they were trying to work out. The last I heard they were having serious discussions about scrapping it and finding another manufacturer.   

[TBoneTX 45,571]

1 minute ago, Steeleballz said:

Many of the names I have never heard of before this month

Maybe they're smaller, nimble, and motivated to create a quality product.

2 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

Abbott is reliable and has been around forever.

Agreed 200%, and mammoth.  Still amazed that they were allowed to buy St. Jude Medical.

3 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

scrapping it and finding another manufacturer.   

Maybe this is what the heretofore unheard-of companies of above are striving for.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

5 minutes ago, TBoneTX said:

Maybe they're smaller, nimble, and motivated to create a quality product.

Agreed 200%, and mammoth.  Still amazed that they were allowed to buy St. Jude Medical.

Maybe this is what the heretofore unheard-of companies of above are striving for.

 

   Many are from China, and while I'm sure the kits are fine themselves, the logistics of getting them here may cause problems. Some are refrigerated and if they are taking weeks to get here with cold packs, they are not going to make it. I have read a few scam stories as well though. Seems like these situations bring out the best in people and also the worst in (some) people.

[TBoneTX 45,571]

32 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

Many are from China

Ah -- didn't consider this.

 

Sidebar:  During my recent search for hand-sanitizer, the only availability was of Chinese products delivered from China in 6 to 8 weeks.  Ironic.  I didn't order any.

[OriZ 3,157]

 

1 hour ago, yuna628 said:

Does a person like Paul Romer account for the fact the said test is not always accurate and tosses out false negatives? It's to the point now my Dad was only given a test because he presented to the ER with weird symptoms that COVID could potentially cause, got a negative, the doctors don't trust the negative but protocol tells them they cannot retest (waste another kit) unless the patient is practically dying. So they treat you like you have COVID because there's nothing that gives them confidence either way.

Here's what he says about it:

 

He argues that even if there are plenty of false negatives, if we committed to isolating everyone with a positive test, we could keep the vast majority of Americans out and about in normal life. All told, that would mean 150 million tests a week.

Critics will argue that’s impossible. We cannot even seem to manage a million a day. They say we lack the materials, as well as the reagents for chemical analysis, the delivery infrastructure and the machines to run so many tests.

Mr. Romer is not dissuaded. “I’ve been focused on a single idea my whole career, that just because something is unfamiliar doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” he said. “Building interstate highways, scanning every book, going to the moon — these were all outrageous ideas at one time. But if we put enough resources and our minds behind it, we are able to make the impossible possible.”

His plan would rely less on contact tracing and isolation, since everyone would be tested regularly, and this might make infection control easier in many parts of the country. Contact tracing requires significant infrastructure and is hard to do well.

“We spend something like $700 billion a year to protect us against military threats,” he said. “We are at greater risk from a biological threat at the moment than any military threat. We should be prepared to spend at least a hundred billion a year not only to protect us against this virus, but any potential new viruses that could threaten us in the future.”

 

I don't agree with all of it, but definitely see his point about automatically assuming something is "impossible" without even trying.
 

[Sparkle Sparkle 914]

Hurry professor we need a cure! 198423401 a vaccine anything please!!