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South Korea's drive-through testing for coronavirus

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Re: South Korea's drive-through testing for coronavirus

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only Trump did not cut back on CDC funding... Thanks Trump!

If only CDC allowed "non official" tests.

This is the real problem. Both the CDC and the FDA stopped everyone else from making progress on testing and we only started getting more tests when labs decided to disobey them.

Cockups like this really should lay to rest the idea some people have that the federal government is a panacea for everything.

This is very similar to one of Warren Buffett's quote about investing in companies: “I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”

The truth is that federal government is far from being able to be wonderful when run by idiots. The best thing to do is try things out at the state level and if it proves to be so wonderful, only then do you try to scale it to two states, then three until it is so wonderful that it can be done at the federal level.

Re: South Korea's drive-through testing for coronavirus

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The credit here doesn't go to South Korea's government but to a company called Seegene and it's CEO Chun Jong-yoon who directed the company to focus on COVID-19 testing on January 16th. They are the reason South Korea's CDC was able to ramp up 118 labs so quickly. It's making about 10,000 test kits a week and has been at the center of South Korea's testing strategy. The market is better at addressing problems than go…

it wasn't "the market" that solved this problem. it was the employees, including the ceo, at that company who felt a duty to the rest of the country, not to some market opportunity, that effected the result. bureaucracies, including corporate ones (see: innovator's dilemma), are typically not nimble enough to respond to rapidly changing circumstances. it's not a market vs government (false) dichotomy.

> it was the employees, including the ceo, at that company

that is the market doing its thing.

The CEO made that decision 4 days before South Korea had its first case.

Re: South Korea's drive-through testing for coronavirus

#34
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The administration turned away from the German designed/WHO standard tests everyone else is using, so I don’t think any international ones are FDA approved. Today’s presser sure gave me the impression that the delay in testing was so they could roll out this nebulous private-public partnership drive through testing and I guess boost CVS’ stock price or something.

I think the Trump administration saw the profit $$$ in test kits while ignoring the larger health and economic risks posed by a delay in testing. Now, it is too late and Trump is too thick-sculled to admit he was wrong.

Trump is the one who banned travelling from China when all the left and media said it is because he is racist, then he banned travel from Europe which is not racist because they are white, he did this also pretty early.

He is the one who advocated strong borders and returning manufacturing to the US and now signed the order to force manufacturing of certain medicines in the US rather than in China. He is the one who objected investing billions in "green new deals", imagine the economy had to deal now with this waste of money on some perceived future problem.

In hindsight Trump was right about his anti globalisation and strong border control policies and did the right things at a reasonable timeline. So yes, he said some stupid stuff, who cares, it is better having someone who do the right things than say the right things.

Re: South Korea's drive-through testing for coronavirus

#35
post #6

The questions to ask for any test: - What is the false positive rate? - What is the false negative rate? - Considering the above, what is the efficacy of mass testing? (Not saying it is or isn't effective, hard numbers are necessary)

There is already studies on that coming out of Wuhan and it's not looking good. Here are some highlights from my own research. Note that RT-PCR is what the CDC recommends and what most nations are using for testing COVID-19:

> the total positive rate of RT-PCR for throat swab samples was reported to be about 30% to 60% at initial presentation [1]

> In patients with negative RT-PCR results, 75% (308/413) had positive chest CT findings; of 308, 48% were considered as highly likely cases, with 33% as probable cases [2]

> For patients with negative RT-PCR tests, more than 70% had typical CT manifestations. On the one hand, due to the overlap of CT imaging features between COVID-19 and other viral pneumonia, false-positive cases of COVID-19 can be identified on chest CT. Nevertheless, considering the rapidly spreading epidemic of COVID-19, the priority was to identify any suspicious CT case in order to isolate the patients and administer appropriate treatment [3]

> Conclusions: In the close contacts of COVID-19 patients, nearly half or even more of the 'asymptomatic infected individuals' reported in the active nucleic acid test screening might be false positives [4]

[1][2][3]: https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/radiol.2020200642

[4]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32133832

Re: South Korea's drive-through testing for coronavirus

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The credit here doesn't go to South Korea's government but to a company called Seegene and it's CEO Chun Jong-yoon who directed the company to focus on COVID-19 testing on January 16th. They are the reason South Korea's CDC was able to ramp up 118 labs so quickly. It's making about 10,000 test kits a week and has been at the center of South Korea's testing strategy. The market is better at addressing problems than go…

it wasn't "the market" that solved this problem. it was the employees, including the ceo, at that company who felt a duty to the rest of the country, not to some market opportunity, that effected the result. bureaucracies, including corporate ones (see: innovator's dilemma), are typically not nimble enough to respond to rapidly changing circumstances. it's not a market vs government (false) dichotomy.

If you ban private companies from making tests, then people like that CEO are blocked from trying.

The market is just shorthand for people.

Re: South Korea's drive-through testing for coronavirus

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The credit here doesn't go to South Korea's government but to a company called Seegene and it's CEO Chun Jong-yoon who directed the company to focus on COVID-19 testing on January 16th. They are the reason South Korea's CDC was able to ramp up 118 labs so quickly. It's making about 10,000 test kits a week and has been at the center of South Korea's testing strategy. The market is better at addressing problems than go…

it wasn't "the market" that solved this problem. it was the employees, including the ceo, at that company who felt a duty to the rest of the country, not to some market opportunity, that effected the result. bureaucracies, including corporate ones (see: innovator's dilemma), are typically not nimble enough to respond to rapidly changing circumstances. it's not a market vs government (false) dichotomy.

I mean, the CEO and the employees are literally part of the free market.

Re: South Korea's drive-through testing for coronavirus

#38
post #5

The situation in Stockholm, Sweden right now is: “You who have symptoms similar to coronavirus will not be tested in the future. This applies regardless of whether you have been in the areas that were previously exposed to infection or had close contact with someone you know is ill in covid-19.” There are no test kits. Hospitals have run out of face masks. And it’s only just getting started here.

One could built UV-Lightmasks. A transparent hose, add UV-LEDS to sterilize the flowing air. Dry the air at the start with silica gel. All that is needed then is a battery. The silica gel can be heated every once in a while to loose any moisture bound it and sterilize virus particles attached to it.

I hate to see creative ideas being down-voted by the mob.

While the length of UV exposure time required to kill viruses is probably impractical for a mask, certain UV bands could be instrumental for sanitizing public areas and hospitals. [0]

[0] https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20180212/can-uv-ligh...

Re: South Korea's drive-through testing for coronavirus

#39
post #5

The situation in Stockholm, Sweden right now is: “You who have symptoms similar to coronavirus will not be tested in the future. This applies regardless of whether you have been in the areas that were previously exposed to infection or had close contact with someone you know is ill in covid-19.” There are no test kits. Hospitals have run out of face masks. And it’s only just getting started here.

Here in Denmark we have just shut our borders. You can no longer enter as Swede.

We as nation put on extreme measures but there is no visibility.

What is the true number of infected in Denmark? There is no sampling or systematic measurement going on.

We probably know less than you guys in Sweden yet we choose the most extreme actions.

We just had our PM go on national TV and call on all Danes to return to Denmark as she shut down the border.

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