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How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

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Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#181

Post by ardy42 »

namelosw wrote: post #129
tyingq wrote: post #5

The mask guidance is confusing as well. I get they are trying to preserve masks for medical staff. But, they also say it's mainly spread by coughing, sneezing, and resulting spray of bodily fluids. Surely even a scarf around your face would have some benefit? Yes, I get that the virus is small enough to pass through, but some deflection is better than none.

I was wondering the same. I'm by no means professional but it seems to be better than nothing, especially for people who sneeze. In China, it's pretty much contained now, and everyone wears masks on the street -- The thing is, there are 1.3 billion people, of course there are a lot of people couldn't buy or afford surgical masks, let alone N95 masks. It turns out people wear regular masks, or even they don't have any…

> In China ... everyone wears masks on the street ... there are a lot of people couldn't buy or afford surgical masks, let alone N95 masks.

Sorry to nitpick, but it's N95 respirators not masks. There's be a lot of terminology confusion on this topic, and I think it's making communication significantly more difficult on this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR2uLfEVD2w

https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/956213O/differences-betw...

Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#182

Post by 1996 »

catalogia wrote: post #140
MiroF wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will probably hit us culturally the way SARS hit east Asia in the early aughts. The good news is that we likely won't be caught completely flat footed against a pandemic again.

Unfortunately many authorities are trying to stamp out public mask culture in the west before it even has a chance to properly develop. I think this is penny wise, pound foolish. It's short term thinking that optimizes for the present at the expense of the future.

> many authorities are trying to stamp out public mask culture in the west

They can't let people wear mask, as it make public tracking by camera/video/etc. less efficient.

So governments will not hesitate to say "masks are ineffective", even during a viral pandemic, even while trying to build their own stocks.

Oh, what irony!

Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#183

Post by gfodor »

davelacy wrote: post #31

CDC has there shortcomings, no doubt but let’s not forget who’s truly to blame for the mess we’re in now. The trump administration’s disbandment of federal institutions created to combat this and the ongoing denial of a serious problem have led to a collapsing economy and isolation of millions. Good article here for sure but let’s not pass the blame to the CDC. We know who to blame...

This thought might comfort you, but if the only lesson we learn from this is “because Trump”, the next pandemic will be just as bad. Our regulatory agencies, our culture, our economic systems, all deserve consideration in the post mortem.

Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#184

Post by jayd16 »

tathougies wrote: post #46
davelacy wrote: post #31

CDC has there shortcomings, no doubt but let’s not forget who’s truly to blame for the mess we’re in now. The trump administration’s disbandment of federal institutions created to combat this and the ongoing denial of a serious problem have led to a collapsing economy and isolation of millions. Good article here for sure but let’s not pass the blame to the CDC. We know who to blame...

Evidence? CDC has more funding than ever. And it's a myth trump got rid of the pandemic team at NSC. They just renamed it the bioterrorism team after people left. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/17/instagram-... https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/12/joy-behar/...

In both links the Trump administration tried to cut the funding but Congress funded it anyway. Can't say that instills confidence in health leadership.

That said, calling the situation a hoax was beyond redemption.

Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#185

Post by eshyong »

RotaryTelephone wrote: post #157
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did the right thing, don’t let anyone pressure you to feel otherwise. Retail stocks of masks for things like painting or carpentry are not at all related to depriving medical supplies. Also for N95 masks, the filter size is about 3x wider than the size of coronavirus. Meaning it provides _a lot_ of protection. It’s not a way to fully prevent anything, but a door only 3x wide lets in way way way fewer things than…

I think you mean 1/3rd as wide... 3x means a door that's three times bigger than a regular door. X means multiply.

Don't think so. GP acknowledges that it'll still let the virus in, but at a lower rate than someone without a mask at all.

Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#186

Post by wool_gather »

CriticalCathed wrote: post #61
look_lookatme wrote: post #18

I think a lot of people in medicine, science, economics, policy and the media think what's happening right now is their shining moment, but if you talk to people on the ground -- this is a catastrophe and no one has any clue what's happening and people see that and they are internalizing it. The experts are f* this up and it is going to have long term implications for already eroded public trust in institutions.

Absolutely. One of the worst consequences that we may have to deal with at the end of this is that public trust will go down. In the beginning our leaders failed to act on the guidance of the scientific and medical communities -- almost two months wasted. And now, our leaders are flailing around implementing policy that is not based on reliable data or scientific evidence. They've both failed to react and then when t…

Ioannidis had [a similar opinion article][0] published last week.

It's worth reading [the rebuttal that followed][1] (as long as we're doing credentials: "Marc Lipsitch, D.Phil., is professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of Harvard’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics."):

It agrees that the basic lack of good information is a failing and also certainly creates risk. But we have seen at least twice now the outcomes of doing nothing or almost nothing:

> First, the number of severe cases — the product of these two unknowns — becomes fearsome in country after country if the infection is allowed to spread.

> So acting before the crisis hits — as was done in some Chinese cities outside Wuhan, and in some of the small towns in Northern Italy — is essential to prevent a health system overload.

There are clearly no truly good choices available right now.

---

[0]:https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-a...

[1]:https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/18/we-know-enough-now-to-ac...

Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#187

Post by gfodor »

jayd16 wrote: post #161
throwaway32120 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems with the hyperpartisanship in America is that it prevents people from acknowledging leadership problems that both parties share. Though I think that Trump has done an incredibly poor job of handling this crisis, there's little evidence that other leaders - in Congress, at the state level, in the media, etc. - have done any better. Of course all our leaders will want to blame other people right now…

This is a failure of the executive branch. Congress did its job long ago. The executive branch already had the legal means it needed but the administration chose to abdicate its responsibility.

Trump cancelled flights in January and was called xenophobic by the minority leader (who cowardly deleted the tweet.) There is plenty of blame to go around. If you actually want to prevent this from happening again, problems need to be corrected beyond the hypothesis of “we elected a bad leader.”

Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#188

Post by davrosthedalek »

ellius wrote: post #48
Thriptic wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very irritating because people don't understand the concept of defense in depth. Are surgical masks going to give you total protection? Of course not, but as you say they provide SOME benefit. Saying "masks don't work because they don't fully stop the virus and users misuse them" is basically equivalent to saying "code review is a waste of time because it won't catch every bug and because devs don't do it correc…

If there are two "mental tools" I wish we could teach every person, they are exponential growth and statistical thinking. Neither is intuitive, but they would help people understand this whole situation (and many others) a lot better.

Very true. But it doesn't stop there. One of my pet peeves is that people who believe they understand exponential growth will extrapolate too far in the future. More often than not, processes working against the exponential growth, negligible small in the beginning, will grow even faster and will reduce the grow rate, even without external intervention. In the example of COVID, it's the chance of interaction of an infected with an uninfected, even without social distancing, just because so many people will be infected, or dead. This effect is completely negligible in the beginning, but dominates in the end. (Of course, all the people modelling the epidemic have this effect in.)

Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#189

Post by tzs »

giggles_giggles wrote: post #155
eecc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about Influenza but I doubt it’s that different from Corona: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20497389/

Are you a doctor? Can you explain why a study about influenza would apply to SARS-CoV-2? Or is your doubt baseless speculation?

SARS-CoV-2 is a spheroid with a diameter of about 120 nm.

There's a lot of variation in influenza viruses, but most are spheroids or ellipsoids with a diameter from 80-120 mm.

For simple mechanical filtering, such as with a mask, they are going to behave pretty similar.

Re: How the CDC’s restrictive testing guidelines hid the coronavirus epidemic

#190

Post by Jare »

susanhi wrote: post #137
Jare wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- If you tell the public that masks are great protection, and the public can't find then to buy, that is a huge source of unrest. - The messaging (in Spain but looks similar everywhere) has been that you should wear one if you are sick or, more importantly here, if you are at risk. This is a clear indication that they do help protect against being infected. This should have prevented everyone from harassing anyone we…

“You should wear one if you are sick” Asymptomatic carriers are showing as a large contributor of spread. We should have a mandate for masks for everyone (since we don’t know who is a carrier or not) and government should contract manufacturers to ramp production ASAP to meet the demand. China and South Korea has ramped productions and is allocating 2 masks per week per resident. US has 330 million people. 2 per pers…

> We should have a mandate for masks for everyone (since we don’t know who is a carrier or not) and government should contract manufacturers to ramp production ASAP to meet the demand.

Absolutely, and this is true for all countries. Personal prophylaxis and distancing will have to become a natural part of our life if we want to get out of this before the eventual remedy happens. But the masks do not exist yet.

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