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Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

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Re: Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

#51

Post by DangerousPie »

m0zg wrote: post #46
bshoemaker wrote: post #26

Our government is led by idiots, this is the result

Hate to break it to you, but nearly all governments are led by idiots who don't know anything and don't care to know. Becoming a non-idiot is hard, time consuming work that's incompatible with politics needed to get elected into a public office. At least our executive branch had enough common sense to ban flights from China on Jan 31st (and was panned by the "free press" and Democrats in congress for it at the time).…

And yet somehow most other countries have still managed to come up with a significantly more competent response. Germany is tracing contacts of all cases and has capabilities to test 20,000 people per day. How many is the US testing right now? And that's a country with 1/3 the population.

There are probably thousands of infections in the country already, we just don't know it yet.

Re: Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

#52

Post by DangerousPie »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #21

I am scheduled to give a talk at large science conference in Seattle this May. I have a feeling its going to get canceled though. :/

I would be pretty surprised if this was going ahead at this point.

Re: Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

#53

Post by Gatsky »

This is really important, especially in countries where flu season is coming.

At the same time, I’ve been reading papers in top journals about various clever technologies to do rapid (ie Final point, nanopore sequencers are ideal for rapid home testing, and you get the actual sequence. They are a bit too expensive unfortunately.

https://nanoporetech.com/products/minion

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00601-3

Re: Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

#54

Post by RandomTisk »

xenospn wrote: post #35
whymauri wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A close friend of mine's wife paid their health insurance for decades, without fail. Their employer changed the insurance provider without notification, but somehow they continued paying the wrong provider. She recently got breast cancer, and now the new provider is denying all claims on the basis that she was paying the wrong provider. They are basically screwed now after maintaining a non-deliquent relationship wit…

My friend paid his health insurance for years. Got diagnosed with cancer (leukemia). Hospital said treatment would cost $750k. Insurance told him to go fuck himself and isn't covering anything.

Do you know what the treatment option(s) were? That seems extremely expensive even for cancer. Makes me wonder what my family plan's maximums are.

Re: Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

#56

Post by claudeganon »

From what I’ve seen, a lot of the false negatives with these tests comes from the fact they require two swabs (nose and throat) that must be performed thoroughly/correctly in order to get a viable sample. I wonder how home testing will impact efficacy.

Re: Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

#57

Post by pengaru »

mrosett wrote: post #34
29athrowaway wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But foundations and philantropy also happen to be great for tax purposes.

You realize that if someone gives away X dollars, it reduces their tax liability by <X?

I believe it's more nuanced than that.

When you're a billionaire you're probably very diversified, and such foundations can serve as convenient vehicles for shuttling money between interests while giving a tax advantage and buying social favor, and who knows, you might manage to actually help some people along the way.

Hypothetical example: Gates sits on the board of the medical company producing covid test kits and holds a large stake. So he directs his foundation to buy huge quantities of the kits and give them away. Gets a number of birds stoned at once.

Re: Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

#58

Post by glofish »

wbronitsky wrote: post #50
glofish wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because it never works like that, never that simple, there are always bigger costs in the end this will be used against you and others next thing you know you are not allowed on a bus if you haven't tested yourself today

I think that the argument “it never works like that” should be coupled with at least one data point. I don’t think it’s helpful to dismiss other commenters based upon simply your opinion, and not a set of facts we can all inspect together.

"never works like that" was meant to reflect that naive, knee jerk solutions never account for all the complexities of the problem and do more harm than good.

distributing COVID tests to the population is a ridiculous idea that does not do anything but create more panic and trouble.

The problem that needs a solution has nothing to do with whether Random Jane can or cannot (in the privacy of their home) determine if they are infected.

For what is worth, there are people out there, not even few, that would knowingly seek to infect others especially if they themselves suffer almost no effects from the disease. They would do it just for the "lulz". Have you considered that? Being infected, knowing it and suffering no ill effects is an evil superpower.

Re: Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

#59

Post by xenospn »

RandomTisk wrote: post #54
xenospn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend paid his health insurance for years. Got diagnosed with cancer (leukemia). Hospital said treatment would cost $750k. Insurance told him to go fuck himself and isn't covering anything.

Do you know what the treatment option(s) were? That seems extremely expensive even for cancer. Makes me wonder what my family plan's maximums are.

I do not. They managed to raise about $80k through GoFundMe, and he just found a donor after months of looking. Assuming he will be in debt for the rest of his life, if he lives.

Re: Gates Foundation program will issue home testing kits for Covid 19 in Seattle

#60

Post by williesleg »

What about finding a cure, there, Billy Boy? Why just test kits? Afraid of big Pharma knowing you have a cure for the common cold?

Edit: Looks like Amazon has it https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/amazon-is-secretly-working-o... Unfortunately they won't publish the link that corona virus is the common cold so it'll be buried.

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