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Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

colorado.edu

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Re: Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

#11

Post by bluGill »

xscott wrote: post #6

I would love for this whole thing to end as much as anyone, but I don't see how this gets anything back to normal. In January of this year, there were a negligible amount of people in the US with Covid. Let's say now in November everyone gets tested every day, and you have an unbelievable compliance for self quarantining on positive results. It would never happen, but pretend it's 99.9% of people following the rules…

You need to get positives down to zero for two weeks before you declare success. Daily testing, with quarantine of any positives and then contact tracing two levels (everyone you contacted and then their contacts could get to zero quickly. But the quarantine step is required for every one to pull that off.

Of course this works out easy in a post. Good luck implementing it in real life. People violate quarantine if they can.

Re: Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

#12

Post by bluedino »

ISL wrote: post #4
charlieflowers wrote: post #2

I think the US gov't is too mired down in ... well, problems ... to do anything this pragmatic, efficient and effective.

Cornell is testing ~everyone once a week. After an initial small flurry of cases, they've picked off 1-2 cases a day before they have a chance to enter the broader populace. https://covid.cornell.edu/testing/dashboard/ Their case-positivity rate is ~100x lower than many places in the United States.

The problem with testing once a week is there are four more days you can be positive on.

Also, by the time you get your test results, you have been positive and spreading.

I get tested on Monday mornings, got a call Thursday night telling me not to come in on Friday. What good did that do?

Re: Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

#13

Post by pmoriarty »

xscott wrote: post #6

I would love for this whole thing to end as much as anyone, but I don't see how this gets anything back to normal. In January of this year, there were a negligible amount of people in the US with Covid. Let's say now in November everyone gets tested every day, and you have an unbelievable compliance for self quarantining on positive results. It would never happen, but pretend it's 99.9% of people following the rules…

"How does this do anything other than reset the clock back to last January just in time for next January?"

First, that alone would be HUGE progress.

"As soon as everyone lowers their guard and goes back to normal, it's going to spread again."

Yeah, but this time you're not going to have whining, tantrum-throwing, conspiracy-mongering, megalomaniacal, science-denying children in charge.

We've yet to see if they wind up being more competent and actually make a difference, but the chance to do proper contact tracing on the relatively few people that get infected will be there, and hopefully the country will take it more seriously the second time around.

I'm not hugely optimistic, but if they actually followed through and were competent in dealing with it this time, it could save millions of lives.

Re: Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

#14

Post by redis_mlc »

cryptoz wrote: post #8
04rob wrote: post #3

Wasn't this the White House strategy? They were doing daily rapid antigen tests, and have had several outbreaks.

No, the White House strategy was to ridicule anyone who wore a mask. To make life miserable for you at work if you considered the virus to be a risk. The White House strategy was based on convincing people there that the virus was fake. Not anything to do with rapid daily antigen test. From what I read, that wasn't an enforced thing anyway. Sounds like people there were also just not getting the tests at all.

Whether you want to blame the CCP, WHO or the White House, the reality is that corona is highly contagious and everybody will get it, mask or not.

It was the job of the CDC to create a vaccine after SARS-1 in 2002/2003, and they failed to either fund or develop one.

There is very little any politician can do once a virus is endemic, as it is in the US, especially with 50 states.

As an example that's comparable to the US situation overall, Toronto did everything right including testing from Day One, yet they've reported 100,000 cases and are doing a hard lockdown:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/21/americas/toronto-lockdown-cov...

Re: Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

#15

Post by threeseed »

xscott wrote: post #6

I would love for this whole thing to end as much as anyone, but I don't see how this gets anything back to normal. In January of this year, there were a negligible amount of people in the US with Covid. Let's say now in November everyone gets tested every day, and you have an unbelievable compliance for self quarantining on positive results. It would never happen, but pretend it's 99.9% of people following the rules…

> Just a few visitors from other countries, and we're at it again

So just do what we do in Australia and quarantine them in hotels.

If you manage it properly it can be highly effective.

Re: Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

#16

Post by cryptoz »

bluedino wrote: post #12
ISL wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cornell is testing ~everyone once a week. After an initial small flurry of cases, they've picked off 1-2 cases a day before they have a chance to enter the broader populace. https://covid.cornell.edu/testing/dashboard/ Their case-positivity rate is ~100x lower than many places in the United States.

The problem with testing once a week is there are four more days you can be positive on. Also, by the time you get your test results, you have been positive and spreading. I get tested on Monday mornings, got a call Thursday night telling me not to come in on Friday. What good did that do?

Agreed, but what good did it do? It prevented you from further spreading the virus more than if you had not got the call.

Every bit helps. Perfection is the enemy of good. Rather test weekly than never. Rather test daily than weekly. Why not hourly or every 15 minutes though? Have to have a balance somewhere.

What good does it do to get a test and have results 2 hours later, if you spread the virus in that 2 hours? Better than spreading it for 2 weeks! But it still allows for it to spread. Something is way better than nothing.

Re: Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

#17

Post by ISL »

bluedino wrote: post #12
ISL wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cornell is testing ~everyone once a week. After an initial small flurry of cases, they've picked off 1-2 cases a day before they have a chance to enter the broader populace. https://covid.cornell.edu/testing/dashboard/ Their case-positivity rate is ~100x lower than many places in the United States.

The problem with testing once a week is there are four more days you can be positive on. Also, by the time you get your test results, you have been positive and spreading. I get tested on Monday mornings, got a call Thursday night telling me not to come in on Friday. What good did that do?

In most of the US, you'd just keep going to work until you felt sick, because you never got tested. If you were asymptomatic, you'd keep right on going to work.

One need not catch every case in order to make the epidemic burn out. One needs to reduce the number of transmissions/case below one. As we begin to win, contact-tracing becomes increasingly effective. When multiple-contact tracers can focus on a single known case, it is possible to really dig in and track cases effectively.

Re: Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

#19

Post by zzleeper »

cryptoz wrote: post #8
04rob wrote: post #3

Wasn't this the White House strategy? They were doing daily rapid antigen tests, and have had several outbreaks.

No, the White House strategy was to ridicule anyone who wore a mask. To make life miserable for you at work if you considered the virus to be a risk. The White House strategy was based on convincing people there that the virus was fake. Not anything to do with rapid daily antigen test. From what I read, that wasn't an enforced thing anyway. Sounds like people there were also just not getting the tests at all.

It's not that surprising that you were downvoted, given the bias seen lately in HN.

More on point, what works on a national scale might not work only within the white house, because (besides lack of mask) the white house is not completely isolated from the rest of the country.

Re: Frequent, rapid testing could turn national Covid-19 tide within weeks

#20

Post by gameswithgo »

threeseed wrote: post #15
xscott wrote: post #6

I would love for this whole thing to end as much as anyone, but I don't see how this gets anything back to normal. In January of this year, there were a negligible amount of people in the US with Covid. Let's say now in November everyone gets tested every day, and you have an unbelievable compliance for self quarantining on positive results. It would never happen, but pretend it's 99.9% of people following the rules…

> Just a few visitors from other countries, and we're at it again So just do what we do in Australia and quarantine them in hotels. If you manage it properly it can be highly effective.

americans start throwing hissy fits at suggestions far far less intrusive than that.

maybe we will die off and the world will be better off. our last screams from this hill of freedom that we die on.

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