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Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

cmmid.github.io

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Re: Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

#11

Post by sjwright »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #7
anonsivalley652 wrote: post #4

The tl;dr: Health security theater catches about half of cases. Wouldn't the prudent step be to globally announce a two-week quarantine of all arriving passengers? In other words, not a total shutdown but slowing to prevent spread rather than foolishly squeeze out some short-term, imaginary economic gains. It may not be at all popular, but it would be the moral and ethical thing to do.

It’s easy to sit in an armchair and claim you’ve found the moral and ethical solution, but there are moral, ethical, and logistical ramifications to instituting a two-week quarantine on all overseas travelers including loss of life . Are you also going to quarantine every pilot and flight attendant for two weeks each time they land, given their close proximity to possibly infected passengers? What is the point of a q…

Those challenges could be overcome with special protocols. The real problem would be the decimation of the tourism industries.

Re: Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

#12

Post by lol768 »

ck2 wrote: post #8

I thought with this virus you can be be infected but not show symptoms for many days? Hence when HHS sent untrained staff with zero protection to meet all the infected people and then they returned all over the country afterwards on commercial flights, they essentially screwed the entire USA in one easy step, practically malicious idiocrasy.

> I thought with this virus you can be be infected but not show symptoms for many days?

The tool takes this into account and lets you adjust the mean time before symptoms show (and the proportion who carry the virus without any symptoms).

Re: Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

#13

Post by mattrp »

themagician wrote: post #10
anonsivalley652 wrote: post #4

The tl;dr: Health security theater catches about half of cases. Wouldn't the prudent step be to globally announce a two-week quarantine of all arriving passengers? In other words, not a total shutdown but slowing to prevent spread rather than foolishly squeeze out some short-term, imaginary economic gains. It may not be at all popular, but it would be the moral and ethical thing to do.

The prudent step would be putting all resources against a vaccine and taking some risks by skipping to late stage trials for anything that looks promising. Sort of like what happened with Ebola. Quarantines just buy you a little extra time. If there is no vaccine, the inevitable always arrives.

Agreed... I remember during Ebola feeling almost as if we simply gave up trying to stamp every little possibility and instead focused on making sure the right patients made it through the system to get the right care. At the same time it’s a little hard to excuse the lack of measurements or even the ability to determine if the virus is present.

Re: Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

#14

Post by majos »

anonsivalley652 wrote: post #4

The tl;dr: Health security theater catches about half of cases. Wouldn't the prudent step be to globally announce a two-week quarantine of all arriving passengers? In other words, not a total shutdown but slowing to prevent spread rather than foolishly squeeze out some short-term, imaginary economic gains. It may not be at all popular, but it would be the moral and ethical thing to do.

Passenger traffic between the USA and the rest of the world was about 20m in March 2019. Not all of this is into the USA, but a sizable fraction must be. Quarantining millions of people in the USA sounds extremely hard.

Re: Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

#15

Post by tunesmith »

ck2 wrote: post #8

I thought with this virus you can be be infected but not show symptoms for many days? Hence when HHS sent untrained staff with zero protection to meet all the infected people and then they returned all over the country afterwards on commercial flights, they essentially screwed the entire USA in one easy step, practically malicious idiocrasy.

People hear this statement and think it means that anyone that is exposed and catches the virus is able to infect anyone else, just the same as if they were completely symptomatic. But it doesn't mean it is as likely. People with symptoms are more contagious, people without symptoms are less contagious. One simple reason why is that people without symptoms tend to cough and sneeze less.

Re: Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

#16

Post by grecy »

themagician wrote: post #10
anonsivalley652 wrote: post #4

The tl;dr: Health security theater catches about half of cases. Wouldn't the prudent step be to globally announce a two-week quarantine of all arriving passengers? In other words, not a total shutdown but slowing to prevent spread rather than foolishly squeeze out some short-term, imaginary economic gains. It may not be at all popular, but it would be the moral and ethical thing to do.

The prudent step would be putting all resources against a vaccine and taking some risks by skipping to late stage trials for anything that looks promising. Sort of like what happened with Ebola. Quarantines just buy you a little extra time. If there is no vaccine, the inevitable always arrives.

> taking some risks by skipping to late stage trials for anything that looks promising. Sort of like what happened with Ebola.

I was in Africa when all that went down.

The huge difference here is that the West didn't really care about giving a not-completely-tested drug to Africans in the middle of nowhere.

I don't believe they'll accept that for their own important citizens.

Re: Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

#18

Post by nl »

anonsivalley652 wrote: post #4

The tl;dr: Health security theater catches about half of cases. Wouldn't the prudent step be to globally announce a two-week quarantine of all arriving passengers? In other words, not a total shutdown but slowing to prevent spread rather than foolishly squeeze out some short-term, imaginary economic gains. It may not be at all popular, but it would be the moral and ethical thing to do.

Health security theater catches about half of cases.

It's not security theatre when it's that effective. It provides real benefits in terms of slowing the spread of the disease.

Wouldn't the prudent step be to globally announce a two-week quarantine of all arriving passengers?

The practicalities of that make it pretty difficult. And it means that large numbers of people who don't have the disease will be kept near those who do, meaning some of them are likely to die. (As happened on the cruise ship). I don't think the morals and ethics of this are as obvious as you are making out.

Re: Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

#19

Post by nl »

jtdev wrote: post #9
ComputerGuru wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy to sit in an armchair and claim you’ve found the moral and ethical solution, but there are moral, ethical, and logistical ramifications to instituting a two-week quarantine on all overseas travelers including loss of life . Are you also going to quarantine every pilot and flight attendant for two weeks each time they land, given their close proximity to possibly infected passengers? What is the point of a q…

Point of any measures would be to slow the spread of COVID19 and reduce the likelihood of an overwhelming wave of infections that cripples the health system, resulting in greater loss of life than otherwise would occur and unrelated mortality due to said impact on health system. Even some simple recommendations from leadership (CDC) would be encouraging to see, but we keep being fed a “nothing to see here, no need to…

Point of any measures would be to slow the spread of COVID19 and reduce the likelihood of an overwhelming wave of infections that cripples the health system, resulting in greater loss of life than otherwise would occur and unrelated mortality due to said impact on health system.

Selective travel bans would seem to be just as effective for this, and a lot more practical.

Re: Interactive model showing effectiveness of airport screenings to catch Covid-19

#20

Post by themagician »

grecy wrote: post #16
themagician wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prudent step would be putting all resources against a vaccine and taking some risks by skipping to late stage trials for anything that looks promising. Sort of like what happened with Ebola. Quarantines just buy you a little extra time. If there is no vaccine, the inevitable always arrives.

> taking some risks by skipping to late stage trials for anything that looks promising. Sort of like what happened with Ebola. I was in Africa when all that went down. The huge difference here is that the West didn't really care about giving a not-completely-tested drug to Africans in the middle of nowhere. I don't believe they'll accept that for their own important citizens.

Oh, I 100% agree. Too politically risky.
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