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> (less than $1/test). How much less than $1? $6B/day is a lot of money.
You can rank people by the likely benefit of testing them. Interestingly, it goes up as the square of the number of people they interact with daily. (Because their risk of having it increases, and also the number they are likely to spread it to.) So you can allocate tests by sorting by (# of daily contacts in a closed space) ^ 2. But as PB says, it should be practical to test everyone every day.
Curious to know how you are getting power of 2 exactly. Are you just saying it's some sort of power law growth and approximately 2, or is there an actual way of deriving it?
[probability of becoming infected and spreading] = [probability of becoming infected] * [probability of spreading] ~ [people you meet]^2
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But how realistic is daily screening on a wide scale? You're going to face major issues with compliance.
That's why I think testing at the door is the more straightforward way to start. We can reopen factories, office buildings, even shopping malls, but no one gets in without passing the screen.
PB, can you elaborate on which other possible answers you've found for fast, easy, and abundant tests? I'm working with a team that has a test that detects proteins associated with covid. It works like a pregnancy test and does not need a special scanner. Would love to discuss further.
Is your protein test able to detect as soon as people become contagious? That's where a lot of ideas fail, but I think getting R0 < 1 likely requires it.
Can we stop hyping blog posts by tech people writing about epidemiology and medicine? I'm shocked how much baseless speculation and misinformation is being shared on HN.
He's not. He's hyping his biomedical startup which is trying to make a cheap plasmon covid test. Whether or not he's right, that's sort of right at the HN sweet spot for relevance. Will it work? God I hope so, but it doesn't seem prudent to bet on it. We know several existing technologies for covid testing that will work. We know they can scale. We know how expensive they are. And while they aren't cheap, we know can…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If it's the owners of these buildings, who checks to ensure compliance? Who checks to make sure every restaurant follows the standards of cleanliness? They have inspectors who (theoretically) show up randomly, so it ensures most places comply voluntarily, because the cost of getting caught is very high. A combination of random inspections and steep fines would solve the compliance problem. Edit: I just had another…
For this to work I think you would need a much stricter compliance than what is enforced in restaurant cleanliness.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now imagine going out shopping, you’re stopped at the door, and you test positive. What happens then? The government puts you in a car and sends you... back to your apartment? Sounds like a dystopian nightmare, to be honest.
The store does not permit you to enter and you are asked to go home and self-quarantine.
It is for some demographics, not all. It's safer than the flu for young folks, especially the under 10's which the flu hits pretty hard. For some it's worse, especially over 70s.
> Catching this virus is a bit like playing a round of Russian roulette. You’ll probably be fine, but you could end up dead.
Also true of the flu. Yes, even for the seemingly young and healthy.
It's amazing how freaked out people are getting over this. All the data points to it being worse than the flu, but not drastically [1]. Certainly not "immunity checkpoints at all building entrances" worse, it's not ebola.
This isn't a unique idea. This is the mainstream view. Everyone knows we need more testing and that testing is the only way to effectively ease distancing rules. That was a pretty extensive writeup to say what we've been hearing from all rational information outlets for a month.
Everyone says "we need more testing", but there's actually very little discussion of how that testing would translate into lower transmission. I'm skeptical any program less aggressive than the one proposed here would get R0 < 1.
We should censor pb because it goes against ‘official WHO advice’
https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-...
"But we have not seen an urgent enough escalation in testing, isolation and contact tracing – which is the backbone of the response.
Social distancing measures can help to reduce transmission and enable health systems to cope.
Handwashing and coughing into your elbow can reduce the risk for yourself and others.
But on their own, they are not enough to extinguish this pandemic. It’s the combination that makes the difference.
As I keep saying, all countries must take a comprehensive approach.
But the most effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of transmission. And to do that, you must test and isolate.
You cannot fight a fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected.
We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.
Test every suspected case.
If they test positive, isolate them and find out who they have been in close contact with up to 2 days before they developed symptoms, and test those people too."