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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

#31

Post by eloff »

threeseed wrote: post #21
sohamsankaran wrote: post #18

This has been obvious for months -- Romer has been yelling from the rooftops about it -- and yet no major western govt save the Brits have attempted to even try this strategy. Madness.

Because the more effective and proven strategy is to simply pay businesses and people to lockdown. It has been effectively eliminated in both Australia and NZ this way. And the impact to the economy is significant but it's turning out to be far less severe than the rest of the world and their on/off again strategy.

You can't really compare two sparsely populated islands at the "end" of the Earth to the US or Europe.

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

#32

Post by eloff »

threeseed wrote: post #28
anonytrary wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> simply pay businesses and people to lockdown This is anything but simple. Vast majority of businesses and people will not be supported if indefinite lockdown continues. The hidden costs of bankrolling an entire country for an indefinite period is much greater than the cost to deploy a persistent, scalable testing framework. The latter is also an investment into the future as this will not be the last pandemic.

No. It's very simple. You just keep paying people until the lockdown is over. Again this isn't some hypothetical exercise. Australia and NZ have just done this and now have basically eliminated COVID-19. As opposed to manufacturing and distributing 100s of millions of tests each week which is very much an unproven exercise.

I'll believe it is simple when you specify how much money is needed and where it comes from to do that.

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

#33

Post by xscott »

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.

Australia's borders are oceans. It's a different thing altogether.

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

#34

Post by chii »

anonytrary wrote: post #24
threeseed wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the more effective and proven strategy is to simply pay businesses and people to lockdown. It has been effectively eliminated in both Australia and NZ this way. And the impact to the economy is significant but it's turning out to be far less severe than the rest of the world and their on/off again strategy.

> simply pay businesses and people to lockdown This is anything but simple. Vast majority of businesses and people will not be supported if indefinite lockdown continues. The hidden costs of bankrolling an entire country for an indefinite period is much greater than the cost to deploy a persistent, scalable testing framework. The latter is also an investment into the future as this will not be the last pandemic.

> entire country for an indefinite period

it's not indefinite - it's just long enough to cut down unknown transmission to a managable number for contact tracing to kick in. Then public health measures like masking up and distancing is effective enough afterwards.

Businesses cannot stand uncertainty - a on-off lockdown that they cannot predict is the worst, because they cannot make investment decisions with this sort of huge uncertainty.

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

#35

Post by jonahbenton »

Have no patience for these fantasies.

This like saying- if pigs flew, we could have national broadband just by outfitting the piggies with this neato lightweight low power wireless transmitter thingee I invented.

The COVID pandemic would be over if a sufficient number of people adopted the well-documented and publicized behaviors to do so. Many who want to cannot for economic and related logistical reasons. And very many do not want to.

Making pronouncements that disregard the shameful rejection of science and public health on the national and local level by so many leaders and assume a national consensus to the contrary exists and is merely lacking a technical means of delivery...this specifically is what I have no patience for.

Stay safe if you are able. My ashamed apologies if through no fault of your own you are not. Your country has failed you and all of us.

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

#36

Post by twblalock »

sohamsankaran wrote: post #18

This has been obvious for months -- Romer has been yelling from the rooftops about it -- and yet no major western govt save the Brits have attempted to even try this strategy. Madness.

> and yet no major western govt save the Brits have attempted to even try this strategy.

The per-capita death rate in the UK is one of the worst in the world for this pandemic, and it's higher than the USA's. And they are now into a second lockdown. Whatever their strategy is, it's not working well at all.

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

#37

Post by threeseed »

eloff wrote: post #31
threeseed wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the more effective and proven strategy is to simply pay businesses and people to lockdown. It has been effectively eliminated in both Australia and NZ this way. And the impact to the economy is significant but it's turning out to be far less severe than the rest of the world and their on/off again strategy.

You can't really compare two sparsely populated islands at the "end" of the Earth to the US or Europe.

UK has a population of 60 million. Australia is 25 million. Both are a set of islands.

Not exactly an order of magnitude difference in population but yet there is a massive difference in the strategies and polices they've deployed. And now UK is a complete mess heading into winter and Australia has effective elimination.

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

#38

Post by chii »

eloff wrote: post #31
threeseed wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the more effective and proven strategy is to simply pay businesses and people to lockdown. It has been effectively eliminated in both Australia and NZ this way. And the impact to the economy is significant but it's turning out to be far less severe than the rest of the world and their on/off again strategy.

You can't really compare two sparsely populated islands at the "end" of the Earth to the US or Europe.

The density of cities in australia and NZ are somewhat similar to european cities. The sparseness of Aus and NS are because their population is concentrated in cities, and there are large land masses.

If the US or UK wants to, they can certainly make the same sort of lockdown. There are costs to it, but the leadership being incompetent at actually leading, is a bigger roadblock over the cost.

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

#39

Post by rectang »

It won't turn the tide, because there is a huge population in the US which, as an expression of political identity, will refuse to get tested — or wear masks or take any other precautions for that matter.

This group will keep the virus alive no matter what, endangering not only themselves, but the rest of us.

ETA: Many downvotes, many upvotes. Downvoters: I would love to hear from you what you find objectionable.

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

#40

Post by threeseed »

eloff wrote: post #32
threeseed wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It's very simple. You just keep paying people until the lockdown is over. Again this isn't some hypothetical exercise. Australia and NZ have just done this and now have basically eliminated COVID-19. As opposed to manufacturing and distributing 100s of millions of tests each week which is very much an unproven exercise.

I'll believe it is simple when you specify how much money is needed and where it comes from to do that.

In the US you just need to look at the COVID-19 bills that are tied up in Congress for an idea of the money needed i.e. ~ 2-5 trillion.

And you can fund it exactly the same way you did for the GFC (print money) or WW2 (war bonds).

But compare it to the cost of the US bouncing in/out of lockdowns for the next 9-12 months.

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