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We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

billiontoone.com

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Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#181

Post by grey-area »

n8udd wrote: post #172
arcticbull wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, children are at basically zero risk (no child under 10 has died). I assume they don't want to spread it between parents via children?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/04/five-year-ol...

A five year old with pre-existing conditions sadly died, and some babies have died in the US, but the risk to children is thankfully very very low (percentages tend to 0% for that cohort at present the deaths are so rare), and infections among children are probably being massively undercounted.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#182

Post by phaemon »

yters wrote: post #82
buzzkillington wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it incredible that no one has done these studies before issuing the lock down orders. Without knowing what the proportion of people who have been exposed but aren't sick any response is the wrong response. If it turns out that it's already spread to most everybody lock downs are just a way to create more homelessness. If it turns out that the only people with the antibodies are the ones in the hospitals we nee…

Yes, if you google "coronavirus iceland" you'll see they've tested almost their entire population. They found 1586 confirmed cases, of whom only 6 died, which gives a fatality rate of 0.4%. Turning this around, if we multiply confirmed deaths by 264, that gives us an estimate of how many cases there are. So, for example, with UK's death count of 6159 this means about 2.4% of the population is infected. Furthermore, o…

From your own link: "The failings contributed to the worst flu season for seven years, with 15,000 deaths from the virus, around twice the average figure, and the worst NHS performance on record."

Not 50,000.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#183

Post by [deleted] »

arcticbull wrote: post #167
meheleventyone wrote: post #152

I’d like to point out that schools are not open in the normal sense in Iceland. All the older kids school is stopped and Universities are shut. Our youngest is three and is in her leikskoli on alternate days so they can maintain small group sizes with no contact between them. Our eldest is six and only in school for a few hours in the morning, skips a bunch of more risky activities and is again segregated from other…

Interesting, children are at basically zero risk (no child under 10 has died). I assume they don't want to spread it between parents via children?

[deleted]

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#184

Post by inciampati »

billiontoone wrote: post #110
andrewon wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I read through your paper. Interesting method. In figure 1A, the workflow includes a standard PCR step before Sanger. Workflow-wise, wouldn't it still have the same bottleneck as qPCR test, i.e. limited by 96/384-well instrument runs?

Thanks; that is a good question. In our laboratory, we have a ratio of 10:1 for PCR to qPCR instruments. In the new laboratory that we are constructing, the ratio is 50:1. It was similar at Stanford academic laboratories during my PhD. Standard PCR instruments are inexpensive and very common. qPCR instruments are definitely not as common, as they are very specialized instruments for a few use-cases. Most clinical lab…

It's also possible to bypass RNA extraction and go directly into RT-qPCR.

"DIRECT RT-qPCR DETECTION OF SARS-CoV-2 RNA FROM PATIENT NASOPHARYNGEAL SWABS WITHOUT AN RNA EXTRACTION STEP" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.20.001008v2

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#185

Post by vrinstan »

mikorym wrote: post #175
arianvanp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also just for perspective. The country of iceland has only 360K people. Their decisions are orders of magnitude easier to pull off.

South African here. We are 60m people (plus quite a few immigrants that are not counted) and we have a complete lockdown.

What is a complete lockdown? Food workers don't go to work anymore?

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#186

Post by sub7 »

dvdt wrote: post #2

I'm the co-founder and CTO at BillionToOne. I'm happy to answer any questions here. I've also posted a slightly more technical explanation of how the test works and why it can scale here: https://twitter.com/dtsao/status/1247642005510873088?s=21 Edit: Since our site seems to be overwhelmed at the moment, here's a recap: We’ve been working hard at BillionToOne on a new COVID-19 test that scales testing to everyone in…

Does India have these machines? Can we easily replicate the tests here?

We are approaching our peak in 3-4 weeks and with current testing capacity totally fucked.

I know many people in Government and on official Covid response team to get the ball rolling if this is a real possibility.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#187

Post by anon102010 »

mike_d wrote: post #87
dvdt wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that self-swabbing is allowed in the Seattle SCAN study because it is a research study. The SCAN study is super fascinating because it would be crazy unusual under normal times for a research study to return results back to patients; I'm very happy they are able to do that, and it speaks to the severity of this pandemic. The FDA has recently made clear that no at-home self-collection tests are allowed (fo…

> The FDA has recently made clear that no at-home self-collection tests are allowed I think rightfully so. I was on a government video conference where a doctor showed the current CDC testing procedure, which involves stick a swab in the nose all the way to the back of the throat. They explained that the further the sample is taken from the lungs the less accurate it is.

Totally false - self swabbing is likely to be pretty accurate - and given current approach of virtually no testing - a much better situation

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#188

Post by panpanna »

tirant wrote: post #177
mcdevilkiller wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, your country reacted, decisions were made and things changed a lot, thus you at least can maintain some volume of classes. Imagine just thinking about something like this here in Spain. Our politicians are a joke, and society lazy and selfish.

I don't see Spanish politicians making more or less mistakes that other governments in Europe. Spain was one of the first countries to adopt strict measures to limit mobility of its citizens. And according to Google Mobility Analysis [1] Spaniards have mostly complied with it, staying at home at much higher rates than other neighbouring countries. So no, I don't see a reason to say that its politicians are a joke and…

Spains problem could at least partially be attributed to really bad luck (e.g. a Champions League game against an Italian team)

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#189

Post by zelos »

arcticbull wrote: post #167
meheleventyone wrote: post #152

I’d like to point out that schools are not open in the normal sense in Iceland. All the older kids school is stopped and Universities are shut. Our youngest is three and is in her leikskoli on alternate days so they can maintain small group sizes with no contact between them. Our eldest is six and only in school for a few hours in the morning, skips a bunch of more risky activities and is again segregated from other…

Interesting, children are at basically zero risk (no child under 10 has died). I assume they don't want to spread it between parents via children?

For primary age children at least, though, there will be roughly one parent/carer per child gathered outside the school gates, which has to be a major source of adult transmission.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#190

Post by estebarb »

sub7 wrote: post #186
dvdt wrote: post #2

I'm the co-founder and CTO at BillionToOne. I'm happy to answer any questions here. I've also posted a slightly more technical explanation of how the test works and why it can scale here: https://twitter.com/dtsao/status/1247642005510873088?s=21 Edit: Since our site seems to be overwhelmed at the moment, here's a recap: We’ve been working hard at BillionToOne on a new COVID-19 test that scales testing to everyone in…

Does India have these machines? Can we easily replicate the tests here? We are approaching our peak in 3-4 weeks and with current testing capacity totally fucked. I know many people in Government and on official Covid response team to get the ball rolling if this is a real possibility.

I have no idea, but at least it should reduce pressure on reagents required for other techniques.
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