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A Third Solution

paulbuchheit.blogspot.com

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Re: A Third Solution

#501

Post by darkerside »

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…

Wouldn't many of the non-technical hurdles be reduced in the current situation? FDA approval steps for example have been relaxed for potential treatments. It's not my area, but I'm just curious what makes it so impossible or unlikely.

Re: A Third Solution

#502

Post by maxerickson »

stonogo wrote: post #342
maxerickson wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, my reaction is certainly on the "let us know when you start scaling out a quite accurate test" side of things, but I don't understand the point of declaring that it can't work. Especially based on assumptions. The petty whinging in your third paragraph is basically ridiculous. Imagine, waiting 10 or 20 minutes a day for a few months to help save millions of life- years .

People don't even observe yield signs reliably. You think everyone on earth is going to suddenly obey testing requirements?

If there's a fast, accurate, cheap test, I don't think compliance is going to be a big issue.

There will be a few people who have some issue with regular testing, the vast majority of people will be happy to have a tool that works.

Re: A Third Solution

#503

Post by RonanTheGrey »

notahacker wrote: post #465
RonanTheGrey wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, simple basic counterargument. When is the pandemic over? When does the pervasive testing stop? The argument can - and will - be made that "unless we keep testing until the end of the human race, you will all die tomorrow of a horrible virus-ridden death." I don't particulary mind doing pervasive testing for awhile. I would desperately not want to live in a world where I could not feed my family unless I give into…

> When is the pandemic over? When does the pervasive testing stop? When we stop seeing non-trivial numbers of test results. The idea that governments want to spend billions on mandatory virus testing outside every building until the end of the human race out of some Orwellian enjoyment of inconveniencing people is not supported by evidence. Even China isn't doing this. Back in the real world, even the SARS vaccinatio…

Fair enough, I accept that premise. Let's revisit in like... 8 months.

Re: A Third Solution

#504

Post by sfink »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #99
ahupp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it because the discussion isn't needed? Anyone who is of moderate intelligence and thinks for a few seconds can see the next logical step. I don't know pb and he might be wonderful and original etc, but I have to agree with the original comment - this is just miles from an original idea. The constraint is tests, not ideas of what to do when we have simple/fast/abundant testing available.... "A third solution" make…

I think calling it a third solution is totally fair. Whether it's a novel solution is separate.

The two solutions that are being debated now are (1) staying in lockdown until a vaccine or treatment is available, and (2) reopening and attempting to manage the spread using existing protocols/ideas (relatively low amounts of testing, quarantining after a period of infectiousness, some form of contact tracing, lots of finger crossing). At least, that's generally what I hear being debated: reopen or not, or when to reopen.

The post suggests that if we had quantitatively much more testing, we could pick a qualitatively different third solution -- namely, reopen pretty freely and realistically control the spread.

Sure, you can view that as a variant of the "reopen" option, but in my mind reopening feels very different with a realistic way to isolate people before they've had a chance to spread it very far. It's proactive vs reactive. If we fully reopen with even 2 orders of magnitude more testing than we're currently doing, it's just going to be a matter of closing back up wherever it gets out of hand. In practice, the openness will fluctuate, things will be spread out over time, politicians will continue to do the exact wrong things, and lots of people will continue to die.

In short: (1) stay in lockdown until vaccine/treatment, (2) reopen without a strategy, (3) reopen with a strategy.

Re: A Third Solution

#505

Post by renewiltord »

clairity wrote: post #396
renewiltord wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about from the view of public health administration. There is no intervention available to us that will ensure a change in behaviour economically. We do have available to us the speed limit.

> “There is no intervention available to us that will ensure a change in behaviour economically.” of course we do. you mentioned one yourself: “providing turbo lanes for ‘Class C+‘ drivers”. it’s only a matter of imagination to come up with others. speed limits are poor proxies for what really impacts lives saved.

Fair enough.

Re: A Third Solution

#506

Post by sfink »

concordDance wrote: post #488
caymanjim wrote: post #13

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.

Testing isn't the only way. Some people just advocate for isolating the elderly and having everyone else mingle. The life expectancy loss from just letting it run its course would be less than a tenth of the life expectancy difference between the second and third wealth quartiles in the USA. And if we aren't worried about that difference, then why are we imposing a quality of life reduction that's much larger than th…

(I'm no epidemiologist etc.)

Because that's a terrible idea that doesn't make any sense. I understand the logic and why it's tempting, and I've even read some of the evidence supposedly backing it up. I find it thoroughly unconvincing.

I won't address the moral side, just the practical.

The virus disproportionately effects the elderly, yes, but far from exclusively. We have seen the non-elderly death rates with distancing in effect. If we could confidently say that >70% of the non-elderly population already had the virus, then this might make some sense. But since at the moment we cannot say that, then this is a method for quickly getting to >90% of the population, and killing off an unknown but far from trivial percentage of us.

Also, I have seen some evidence that the magnitude of symptoms is partly dependent on the degree of exposure. If that is the case, I really really do not want to be sitting between two infectious people in a movie theater or sports arena. But this would be commonplace with the whole "let's just sacrifice the elderly" approach.

Re: A Third Solution

#507

Post by danielmarkbruce »

sfink wrote: post #504
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it because the discussion isn't needed? Anyone who is of moderate intelligence and thinks for a few seconds can see the next logical step. I don't know pb and he might be wonderful and original etc, but I have to agree with the original comment - this is just miles from an original idea. The constraint is tests, not ideas of what to do when we have simple/fast/abundant testing available.... "A third solution" make…

I think calling it a third solution is totally fair. Whether it's a novel solution is separate. The two solutions that are being debated now are (1) staying in lockdown until a vaccine or treatment is available, and (2) reopening and attempting to manage the spread using existing protocols/ideas (relatively low amounts of testing, quarantining after a period of infectiousness, some form of contact tracing, lots of fi…

Imo, those are the currently discussed solutions because of the lack of available testing. Ie, with the current constraints. It's akin to two people discussing how to use the budget of $1 million and a third saying "I have a third solution: Make the budget $100 million and do everything". Sure, it's not wrong, and it's different to the first two, but... who cares? Everyone kind of already knows if you have the $100 million you have a much better option.

Re: A Third Solution

#508

Post by DominikD »

I'm tired of reading that it spreads through the air and so we should avoid indoor spaces where we share air. It spreads through droplets large enough for the gravity to pull them down relatively fast.

It's not measles, you can't contract it by breathing the same air someone infected did unless you're in a medical setting and AGP is performed on someone who's infected. If it was airborne, masks that aren't fitted wouldn't protect anyone: they wouldn't prevent absorbing nor would they prevent spreading.

Re: A Third Solution

#509

Post by buboard »

DominikD wrote: post #508

I'm tired of reading that it spreads through the air and so we should avoid indoor spaces where we share air. It spreads through droplets large enough for the gravity to pull them down relatively fast. It's not measles, you can't contract it by breathing the same air someone infected did unless you're in a medical setting and AGP is performed on someone who's infected. If it was airborne, masks that aren't fitted wou…

How sure are we?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...

Re: A Third Solution

#510

Post by ahupp »

garmaine wrote: post #423
ahupp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

R0 is less than 1 already in many regions...

Yes, at enormous cost.
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