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A Third Solution

paulbuchheit.blogspot.com

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Re: A Third Solution

#241

Post by arcticbull »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #231
arcticbull wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finally, please stop referring to what's going on as "panic". All things considered, most people have been remarkably calm. The only ones panicking seem to be the crazy attention-seekers blocking traffic. Stopping the world is the panic button. 100% of the news cycle devoted to coverage. All schools shut down. It can be justified or unjustified but I think it's a stretch to call it anything but panic. I'd say the o…

Oh, you're one of those. Okay, thanks for showing your hand. For anybody else reading that's unaware: Sweden is still in the earlier stages of growth, not yet peaking in total cases [1], but they already have 6x the per-capita death rate of either of their neighbors, Norway or Finland, and 50% higher than the per-capita rate in the US. If the US followed the Swedish model, we'd need, conservatively, another 25,000 bo…

> For anybody else reading that's unaware: Sweden is still in the earlier stages of growth, not yet peaking in total cases [1].

Not really, they seem to have leveled off alongside Canada, the US and the UK. [1] In fact, your own link says as much, the number of daily new cases in your link has been constant for at least a week.

> ...but they already have 6x the per-capita death rate of either of their neighbors, Norway or Finland, and 50% higher than the per-capita rate in the US.

Obviously, that's because they're not locked down. I assume they have 6X the per-capita flu death rate of Norway and Finland too. Car accident deaths, also. That doesn't mean much, it's a different strategy.

> If the US followed the Swedish model, we'd need, conservatively, another 25,000 body bags. Probably a lot more than that given other comparative differences between the two countries.

The thesis is that the delta between deaths is temporary. That as soon as the major countries open back up, the deaths will resume and so it represents just a temporary deferral of deaths not a net increase. The reality is epidemiologists predict 70% of us are going to get COVID this year, and with COVID as infectious as it is, and without us being able to sit inside until literally every last COVID virus dissipates, it'll be back as soon as we open up.

[1] https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?location=Canada&location=Sw...

Re: A Third Solution

#243

Post by zaroth »

mastermojo wrote: post #223

Why are there so many armchair quarterbacks in this thread spouting dismissive criticism? Paul already acknowledges that "success is far from guaranteed." If this works, great! If it doesn't, I don't think any of us are worse off... This seems like a heavy application of The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

I’d be less inclined to offer negative opinions on someone making a product that helped manage COVID and financially benefiting from that product, if it;

1) Actually helped solve a problem we face with COVID without doing more harm than good, and

2) Did so in a way that didn’t trample civil liberties with invasive daily tests before allowing someone to leave their house.

Re: A Third Solution

#244

Post by agentdrtran »

justnotworthit wrote: post #240

> With early detection, we can get the best known treatments From WHO: What is the treatment for the coronavirus disease? No pharmaceutical products have yet been shown to be safe and effective for the treatment of COVID-19. What is the author referring to?

Assuming he's speaking in the more general sense, but who knows? he's an engineer and not an epidemiologist or a doctor.

Re: A Third Solution

#245

Post by mrfusion »

It’s a cool solution but I don’t like the fear mongering at the beginning. Reminds me of this (0)

If you’re a numerate person you’ll know it’s very unlikely you’ll lose a leg to corona virus. People argue that the fear is needed to keep people accepting quarantine but I’d submit that honesty is the best policy. We need to find a way to make honesty work.

The alternative is people losing trust in science the more they’re misled.

In the event his solution isn’t a available soon, What do you think of a solution like this? (1)

(0) https://mobile.twitter.com/billmaher/status/1251350310045413...

(1) https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/494034-the-data-are-i...

Re: A Third Solution

#247

Post by new299 »

dekhn wrote: post #216

I was curious about the company that's being touted in this post so I did a little searching. The website doesn't seem to have much on it. I guess it's a YC17 company. The founders are Caroline Landau, Tim Cornell, Walker McHugh. From 2016: Landau was an MBA candidate, the other two founders have biomedical research/medical backgrounds: Walker McHugh, Co-Founder, PreDxion Bio / Biomedical engineering candidate, Unive…

Right, I think we’ve probably missed boat on developing new diagnostic methods for Sars-CoV2.

In particular, this method appears to be antibody based? (Which has accuracy issues) and uses SPR, which may involve some technical risk.

However, I think there’s mileage in developing methods now for the next pandemic. My personal interest is in developing programmable qPCR-like systems [1]. So that kits can be deployed ahead of time, and then programmed to a specific target as required. If anyone is interested in discussing diagnostic approaches, please get in touch.

[1] http://41j.com/blog/2020/03/thoughts-on-a-new-approach-to-vi...

Re: A Third Solution

#248

Post by korantu »

jawns wrote: post #111
pdonis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure this "test and release" strategy works unless absolutely everybody gets tested simultaneously. They don't all have to get tested literally simultaneously; but the "release" part of the strategy can't start until the "test" part has covered everybody, or at least close enough to "everybody" that the difference doesn't matter. Note that that's how the strategy is stated in what you quote: if we can ident…

But contagious status is not fixed. If you test someone, they're negative, but despite sheltering in place they pick up the virus while at a necessary doctor's appointment, then their status changes. Granted, frequent follow-up tests might identify that change, but daily tests of a sufficiently large portion of the population have a number of challenges beyond just access to the tests.

The difference here is that you test everyone entering a certain location, not everyone in general. This is much easier, and allows testing to be focused on most needed areas. In effect, if you only go to the groceries once a week, you will be tested once a week. If you go back to office, you will be tested every day. The more you interact with people the more you get tested to keep the interactions safe

Re: A Third Solution

#249

Post by pb »

justnotworthit wrote: post #240

> With early detection, we can get the best known treatments From WHO: What is the treatment for the coronavirus disease? No pharmaceutical products have yet been shown to be safe and effective for the treatment of COVID-19. What is the author referring to?

The best known treatment at the time the infection is detected. That can be as basic as rest and hydration, but hopefully we'll have something better down the line.
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