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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

#231
post #34
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no country has tested 1 million people Well, the country prepared for epidemics just didn't have to test one million people, but still kept it under control: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/how-south-korea-flattened... They were indeed able to use their tests more efficiently than any other country, and to really do a lot of tests compared to any other country: https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a304020000…

Wouldn't it also help that South Korea is 1/7th the size of Texas so it's a little easier to test everyone? It also helped one company mass produced tests

South Korea has twice the population of Texas (51.7M vs 19M). Alaska is twice as big as Texas, is it harder to test everyone in Alaska than Texas?

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

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on thst WW3 reference - it's not a story that made the rounds here.

I think they are referring to the killing of Qasem Soleimani and the subsequent retaliation [1]. [1]: https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/United_States_military_kills_Qa...

Indeed, there were a lot of people going on about WW III, a draft, etc. It's a bit harder to find good examples now that the hype has faded and the results get buried on Google, but here are a few samples -

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2020/01/03/some-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/01/04/...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/07/youth-nee...

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

#233
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you show some predictions of World War 3 imminently happening by news sources? Say CNN.

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

#234

Getting the test was difficult enough here in California. A bigger problem that isn't being discussed is the delay to get the results. I had a test 10-days ago and still do not have results. Obviously, still self-isolating. The local health county department have taken over issuing the results. Yesterday, after multiple calls they told me to call the hospital as they don't have an answer. Was able to contact someone…

Well in 4 days you don't need to know any more.

I'm planning to still self-isolate beyond that for now. The median duration of viral shedding is 20 days according to the research out of Wuhan. The longest observed duration of viral shedding in survivors was 37 days.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

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

#235
post #5

Does anyone know actual facts about testing in the US? Yes, the CDC's tests were flawed, but ... 1) Other countries don't have a problem testing millions of people, so why doesn't the US use the same tests they do? 2) 3.5 weeks ago the Trump admin promised 1 million tests that week with many more to follow soon thereafter. After all this time they still haven't materialized, so what happened to the million tests? 3)…

The CDC is still instructing healthcare providers NOT to test UNLESS a person has either come into contact with a known COVID-19 carrier OR recently traveled abroad. Otherwise, the guideline is "do not test." I am married to a healthcare provider. Nevermind clinical judgement, context, or an abundance of available tests. If you don't meet the above guidelines, my spouse is being firmly instructed to follow the CDC gu…

Probably because there is a shortage of tests, so they want to save the tests for people who are most likely to have contracted the virus.

Can you design a test for this virus that scales out to over a million people in two months? If so, you should start working on that.

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

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in 4 days you don't need to know any more.

I'm planning to still self-isolate beyond that for now. The median duration of viral shedding is 20 days according to the research out of Wuhan. The longest observed duration of viral shedding in survivors was 37 days. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Vital shedding does not necessarily mean you are contagious with the virus.

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

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that people are looking at you not because they want to shame you, but because they're trying to determine if you're sick and they should be extra careful around you, e.g. don't touch anything you've touched, etc? If the guidance so far has been to only wear a mask if you're sick, it seems reasonable to assume that someone wearing a mask is more likely to be sick than average.

Most of these people are passersby on the street who would have no opportunity to touch something I've touched. I heard from someone who wore a mask recently who was flat-out told, "You're overreacting." It's not just caution, there is some kind of social insistence that the masks are not necessary and even to be discouraged, which I even sense in myself when I'm out and about without a mask and see others wearing th…

People have implicit or explicit reactions to things. Not trying to down play your experience here (your experience is still valid), but they probably are not intentionally thinking or making a face. It's probably because this is new to them and not something they usually experience, so they do a double take and end up with a stare. I've done this will people wearing gloves recently, even though after 2 seconds of thinking about it I know there's rationale behind it.

Try not to presume people are so quick to judge, rather that people are just feeling whatever they feel instinctively, and it is what it is. They probably don't even know why they feel what they do, it's just bad intuition not ignorance.

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

#238

How many deaths per capita for US versus other industrialized countries?

Deaths per capita will be most important at the end of the pandemic. Right now you're better off looking at case-fatality-rate, day over day rate of new cases, and the current number of cases.

Right now the US is at 52K cases and ~650 deaths. That is ~1% fatal, but that can decrease by more testing or increase because it takes time to die. Currently 0.01% of the US has tested positive and 0.0002% of the US has died. The worry is that those numbers double every 2-3 days and will cause an unprecedented spike in the number of hospitalizations.

You can try predicting the number of deaths by looking at a semilog plot: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

Pretty sure it was also the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and BuzzFeed, etc.

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

#240
post #44
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it also help that South Korea is 1/7th the size of Texas so it's a little easier to test everyone? It also helped one company mass produced tests

It's about priorities. The US spends 15 times more money for military than South Korea but is still not able to comparably protect itself from a single epidemics. Instead, the U.S. citizens get what I've cited in another message here: "It will magically go away." I wouldn't be so angry if that attitude haven't been contagious -- a lot of leaders of the U.S. NATO partners simply "followed the leader" and continued to…

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