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CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

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Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#181

Post by belltaco »

air7 wrote: post #169
mikeyouse wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feb 1st in Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/tests-for-coronavirus-us-mig... Feb 12th in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-test-k... Feb 12th in LiveScience: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-testing-kits-flawed.... Feb 12th from Physicians Weekly: https://www.physiciansweekly.com/some-u-s-states-launch/ Feb 13th on FoxNews: https://www.foxnews.com/health/some-co…

I think the Media the-boy-who-cried-wolf itself. There are scares all the time and people grew (rightly) indifferent. Imagine a responsible media that's not out looking for click grabbing headlines all of a sudden mentioning a would-be pandemic...

Can you mention a few scares that you mention that happen "all the time" ?

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#182

Post by belltaco »

partiallypro wrote: post #114
h2odragon wrote: post #47

Where was the media in this? Lots of scare stories about potential pandemics back to January, in the US media, but I dont recall much if any "the CDC is fucking up / not testing" coverage. Of course that kind of thing was probably being said in the froth of the fringe and conspiracy theorists, but thats all "fake news" and unmentionable now.

As I recall, a lot of the media was saying we should be more worried about the Flu than this. That was the prevalent mantra from Jan-Feb.

[flagged]

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#183

Post by pbhjpbhj »

wideasleep1 wrote: post #148
dboreham wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it will be shown that disposable $0.50 N95 masks are largely effective and that the US population was deliberately misled about their effectiveness because the country has no way to provide such masks not only to the general public but to healthcare workers.

Agree, but it's not so cut and dry. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t... edit: speaking of cut and dry..men should be clean-shaven to ensure snug fit.

Interesting preface.

In the UK we were told that masks were simply not effective, there was no need for them, they would not hinder the spread of infection.

Similarly with closing schools: "the gov has this special plan that uses herd immunity, you idiot, so we don't need to close schools" [actually it's always "Boris has a plan", I can't understand why -- if it's the PM's plan then it's probably entirely ignorant of all the facts ...].

Anyway, yeah, the argument wasn't that

>"[we] disagree on whether surgical masks alone help prevent the wearer from becoming infected" [from your link]

it was "masks of any kind are ineffective".

And we bloody well know that just the effectiveness of masks in preventing spread from infected patients makes them worthwhile. It's simply maths that 1 infected who spreads to 1 more is more than 1 infected spreading to zero more.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#184

Post by belltaco »

throwaway122378 wrote: post #83
h2odragon wrote: post #47

Where was the media in this? Lots of scare stories about potential pandemics back to January, in the US media, but I dont recall much if any "the CDC is fucking up / not testing" coverage. Of course that kind of thing was probably being said in the froth of the fringe and conspiracy theorists, but thats all "fake news" and unmentionable now.

On 1/24/20 the WHO said there’s no human to human transmission of covid-19 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=20 They are to blame as much as anyone else

They said there is no evidence of it, that's completely different from what you wrote.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#185

Post by wideasleep1 »

gdubs wrote: post #173
wideasleep1 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. Again, 1 screen, but folks are seeing 2 different movies. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/dems-misconstrue-trump-bud...

Your link — which you’ve posted twice — doesn’t address the points being made. It’s a fact that the pandemic response team was cut, and it’s a fact that the White House budget proposal included cuts to the CDC. 1: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

You should read the factcheck.org link more carefully, as it details/addresses these points, and also indicates congress indeed funded (they control the purse, after all) the CDC, despite Trump's proposal.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#186

Post by meddlepal »

JDulin wrote: post #170
aazaa wrote: post #121

The damage will be much longer lasting than this. The Chinese bought the US precious weeks to prepare while it locked down vast numbers of its own population. The disaster could have been prevented through a vigorous testing/quarrantine program in Washington and California. At every step of the way the US either bungled testing, or actively discouraged testing. It's been nothing but lies and mistakes from the start.…

These problems are not due to an "administration". The rot of American institutions is deep. The competence and coherence of the entire American civil service and civil life has fallen precipitously in the last 20 years, and, in part because of their irrational fixation on this administration, people still cannot wrap theirs head around the fact that problem is in personnel and structure. The CDC botched the developm…

This so much. The system is absolutely corrupt and broken to the core. Poor leadership exacerbates the problem but it is not the fault of poor leadership. We've merely been coping with the horrible brokenness of our system for decades.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#187

Post by DocSavage »

gitgudnubs wrote: post #96
DocSavage wrote: post #72

I'm also surprised that there isn't more talk about the sensitivity of the standard nasopharyngeal swab + RT-PCR. When the FDA approved it, they showed it's extremely accurate... if you use swabs saturated with the virus at various concentrations. Then I read about the poor (70-80%) sensitivity in the real-world, which isn't suprising considering you (1) have variably expert technique in positioning swabs into uncomf…

If the reproduction rate is 10, and you catch 70% of cases, then the effective reproduction rate will be closer to 3. Since even the highest estimates of the basic reproduction number are only about 4, a test that's 75% accurate means an effective reproduction rate closer to 1. Are you aware of the difference between 4^x and 1^x?

Since you are being snarky:

Are you aware that the sensitivity quoted was mostly in symptomatic and hospitalized patients and not those in the very earliest stages who could also be shedding less virus?

Are you aware that each false negative can infect N others, some of whom might have also been previously tested, and also be greenlit to deal with high-risk populations like nursing homes?

Are you aware that your 4^x vs 1^x comparison assumes that in that chain everyone is tested, which is not even close to the case now.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#188

Post by Natsu »

H8crilA wrote: post #156
kiba wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop threatening criminal negligence charge for every single mistakes people make? It's not going to improve performance in the next pandemic if people are afraid of doing their job or engages in ass covering.

Uhm, yes, skin in the game? Things generally don't improve because people get better. Things generally improve because bad people/groups/corporations/ideas fail. Way more people should be fired / tried / impeached. Need I remind you that nobody went to jail over 2008? It does make the system more healthy. If you're responsible for the health of some country you better be scared , because the consequences are dire, an…

That's effectively the complete opposite of how to actually eliminate errors. The way engineers do it involves depersonalizing it to get away from blame games, assessing all contributing causes, doing proper risk modeling and working to improve the systems so that they rely on human frailty as little as possible.

Skin in the game is an easy concept we're all familiar with, but it generally leads to adverse behavior like gaming the numbers instead of fixing the problems.

See, e.g. http://www.hazardcontrol.com/factsheets/principles/core-prin...

---

"Herein, the term “unsafe condition” is retained, but the term “unsafe act” is rejected as historically leading to error or incomplete cause analysis.

Rather, inappropriate human actions or inactions of persons that contribute to accidents (resulting from error or human nature associated with the common relevant human factor capabilities and limitations of men and women) are called “unsafe actions,” defined as unsafe system use methods and procedures, without any initial implication of fault or blame."

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#189

Post by [deleted] »

Animats wrote: post #48

From the New York Times: "Peter Hotez, an eminent vaccine scientist at Baylor College of Medicine, told me that he and his colleagues have a candidate vaccine for the coronavirus but still haven’t been able to line up sufficient funding for clinical trials."[1] This scientist was involved with developing a SARS vaccine. It never went to full clinical testing because the disease disappeared before the vaccine was read…

[deleted]

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#190

Post by Natsu »

belltaco wrote: post #181
air7 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Media the-boy-who-cried-wolf itself. There are scares all the time and people grew (rightly) indifferent. Imagine a responsible media that's not out looking for click grabbing headlines all of a sudden mentioning a would-be pandemic...

Can you mention a few scares that you mention that happen "all the time" ?

World War 3 supposedly started in January by some accounts, but is nearly forgotten now. What's some mystery flu in China got on that as far as headlines go?

Sure, we can answer this with a bit of hindsight, but it's amazing how quickly we forget even wildly incorrect predictions.

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