A Third Solution • Hacker News Board

Re: A Third Solution

#331

Post by walterbell » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:18 AM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #78

LiquidSky wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that just moves the compliance and logistics problem back one step. Who's doing this massive amount of testing? If it's the government, you'd need armies of workers spread out everywhere. If it's the owners of these buildings, who checks to ensure compliance? Imagine trying to enforce this on every non-residential building in, say, NYC. It would be practically impossible.

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.

Not only you, but everyone who was recently within six feet of you as determined by contact tracing (manual now, bluetooth later). If you don't live alone, you go to a mandatory isolation center, possibly a designated hotel. Kids can be separated from parents.

https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/03/contact-tracing...

Now is the time to express opinions on these "proposals"..

Re: A Third Solution

#332

Post by renewiltord » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:20 AM UTC

clairity wrote: post #327

renewiltord wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to raising speed limits like any good Californian. But there's an asymmetry in the positions, in that more reaction time is universally better than less reaction time.

that’s not so self-evident. reaction time is a property of the driver, not the speed. slower speeds can lull drivers into slower reaction times, so it’s not so obviously asymmetrical. drunk drivers tend to drive slower than normal but have higher fatality crash rates, for example. active driving and avoiding distractions (including drugs) are the difference makers, not speed limits. the reason people oppose this is b…

Allow me to ensure I understand your position. Overall, you believe that lower speed limits will result in more accidents?

I am certainly on the side of raising speed limits to 100 mph where possible. Or providing turbo lanes for "Class C+" drivers or something. But that's because I think I'm willing to make the trade-off in lives. Your opinion is more that we're making not a trade-off but costing ourselves both lives and speed?

Re: A Third Solution

#333

Post by klipt » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

predxionbio wrote: post #278

zmmmmm wrote: post #212

The post refers to an alternative method of testing for COVID-19 based on surface plasmon resonance that would have significant advantages, but unfortunately it provides absolutely no real substantiation that the test exists or works. The link about surface plasmon resonance goes to a generic Wikipedia page, the link about saliva is a small scale study that was conducted on RT-PCR not surface plasmon resonance, and t…

Hi, Walker here, one of the PreDxion Bio co-founders. Heres a some more information on the technology underlying the test we are developing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25790830/ . Unfortunately, up until about a month ago us like many folks, were blissfully minding our business developing a rapid point of care cytokine detection platform for use in monitoring patients experiencing certain immune responses follow…

What do you think of the article's claim that eliminating the cold virus would be a good thing? I think I read somewhere that early exposure to cold viruses reduces the chance of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which makes me wary of trying to eliminate them completely...

Re: A Third Solution

#334

Post by icinnamon » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

predxionbio wrote: post #255

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…

Hi, Walker here, one of the PreDxion co-founders. Up until recently we've been focused on developing our technogy as a point of care biosensor for us in patients experiencing dysfunctional immune responses (e.g., sepsis, ARDS, and the immune responses induced by certain cancer immumotherapies). The technical implementation of a viral detection assay is much simiplier to implement than our quantitative, multiplexed sm…

It’s critical to not underestimate the non-technical steps here, in terms of how do you deploy at scale, convince venues to install, deal with throughput rates, tie results to individuals, etc. All solvable, but it’s important to think about those sooner rather than later. I have some experience on the security side here and how to deploy technologies like this at scale... happy to help (my email is in bio).

Re: A Third Solution

#335

Post by vanniv » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:22 AM UTC

No, we definitely don't want a world in which government officials have little kiosks outside every business where they get to decide who has to be removed from society with no due process.

Re: A Third Solution

#336

Post by taneq » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:23 AM UTC

TenJack wrote: post #286

zmmmmm wrote: post #212

The post refers to an alternative method of testing for COVID-19 based on surface plasmon resonance that would have significant advantages, but unfortunately it provides absolutely no real substantiation that the test exists or works. The link about surface plasmon resonance goes to a generic Wikipedia page, the link about saliva is a small scale study that was conducted on RT-PCR not surface plasmon resonance, and t…

I gathered the same thing. Basically the gist is, if we can develop a cheap, fast, and effective test for COVID-19 then we can test everywhere and re-open everything.

Yeah but maybe we shouldn't. We have the technology to compartmentalise our society WAY more than it currently is, at relatively little cost. COVID-19 is a fantastic dress rehearsal for the next disease, which will be far scarier and will come relatively soon. Humanity is a monoculture and like all such, is very vulnerable to pathogens. We need to start building social distancing into our culture the same way we built protection for sex into our culture.

Re: A Third Solution

#337

Post by zaroth » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:24 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #265

mrfusion wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why we always jump to the China approach of forcing people to do things. Why not use an incentive system instead? You’d need a lot of work to design a good system but for example pay $100 for a positive test and proof that you isolated that day. (For proof of isolation maybe a system texts you at random times and asks for a picture of something in your house. Eg. 10:13am you get a text asking for a picture o…

You don't really need to pay. At the infectious disease place in Marseille they offered free tests, hundreds lined up to get tested and the the number of infections in community dropped dramatically.

I think the key fact here is that tests were offered and people lined up and volunteered to take them.

Strict constitutional scrutiny requires that the least disruptive action be taken to obtain the desired effect.

I think no would could possibly argue that widespread free testing would be a bad thing. It’s when it becomes mandatory that it becomes not only wrong, but unconstitutional.

Re: A Third Solution

#338

Post by dboreham » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:26 AM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #75

pb wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he is the best I've found. This proposal is still at least an order of magnitude more testing though :) (on the order of 100 million tests/day, not 1 million tests/day)

Romer has called for as much as 30 million tests a day, which I think was based on some simplistic modeling. I think he was targeting everyone in the US being tested every two weeks. I think the two approaches are similar: let's test lots of people all the time, however many X million tests a day that is, so that we can quickly isolate and treat them. People are spreading it before they know they have it, so let's ju…

Basically like the porn industry.

Re: A Third Solution

#339

Post by clairity » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:33 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #332

clairity wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that’s not so self-evident. reaction time is a property of the driver, not the speed. slower speeds can lull drivers into slower reaction times, so it’s not so obviously asymmetrical. drunk drivers tend to drive slower than normal but have higher fatality crash rates, for example. active driving and avoiding distractions (including drugs) are the difference makers, not speed limits. the reason people oppose this is b…

Allow me to ensure I understand your position. Overall, you believe that lower speed limits will result in more accidents? I am certainly on the side of raising speed limits to 100 mph where possible. Or providing turbo lanes for "Class C+" drivers or something. But that's because I think I'm willing to make the trade-off in lives. Your opinion is more that we're making not a trade-off but costing ourselves both live…

no, i’m saying speed is largely beside the point when discussing saving lives in auto accidents. the critical behavior change we need is constant active driving, which is hard, but that’s what would make a meaningful difference, not lowering speed limits. people tend to drive as fast as conditions allow anyway.

Re: A Third Solution

#340

Post by behnamoh » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 3:36 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #336

TenJack wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gathered the same thing. Basically the gist is, if we can develop a cheap, fast, and effective test for COVID-19 then we can test everywhere and re-open everything.

Yeah but maybe we shouldn't. We have the technology to compartmentalise our society WAY more than it currently is, at relatively little cost. COVID-19 is a fantastic dress rehearsal for the next disease, which will be far scarier and will come relatively soon. Humanity is a monoculture and like all such, is very vulnerable to pathogens. We need to start building social distancing into our culture the same way we buil…

Ever since 2000, we've have a pandemic once every decade. The next one will occur soon, but it's not certain whether it'll be as scary as COVID-19.

> We need to start building social distancing into our culture the same way we built protection for sex into our culture.

While I agree with the general gist of your comment, I should emphasize that what we need is physical-distancing, not social. Humans are social beings at core, and depriving them of social interactions is as deadly as the virus itself. What we should be practicing more than ever before is washing our hands, minding our coughs, and in general, being responsible to the society. The individualistic lifestyle - which is pretty much dominant in the West - shouldn't stop us from caring about our community as a whole and our duties towards other people. Technology can only help us get so far; the rest depends on how much we - as responsible social beings - take care of ourselves and each other.