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

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

#41

Post by jlokier »

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…

> or from it running its course to be done with this.

A nitpick, but it deals with a pervasive idea that should be updated.

The virus will most likely never "run its course" to give us collective immunity without technological intervention.

That's because herd immunity is only known to have ever occurred as a result of deliberate vaccination, and even then it disappears in areas where vaccination stops. It has never been observed to occur naturally as a result of infection.

In other words, the "natural herd immunity solution" is simply not something most of the scientific community believes to be an option right now. Instead the prevailing theory is that if we let it "run its course" it would in fact continue circulating endlessly, gradually mutating.

Epidemiologists do perform calculations to estimate how natural herd immunity might arise, but it has never yet been observed to actually happen, and the calculations are intrinsically rather unreliable.

From "The false promise of herd immunity for COVID-19" (21st October 2020, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4):

> never before have we reached herd immunity via natural infection

Also maybe relevant, if herd immunity could occur naturally, then the calculations done around it lead to:

> proposals to largely let the virus run its course [...] could bring “untold death and suffering”

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

#42

Post by chii »

gameswithgo wrote: post #20
threeseed wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> americans start throwing hissy fits

well there's your problem. People are unwilling to make the least bit of self-sacrifice for a common cause.

And it's not even that big of a sacrifice - it's just staying in a hotel for 2 weeks, and not leaving! I'm like WTF why is it such a big deal?

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

#43

Post by eloff »

threeseed wrote: post #40
eloff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds like a terrible idea.

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

#44

Post by twblalock »

threeseed wrote: post #37
eloff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And now UK is a complete mess heading into winter and Australia has effective elimination.

Of course it might help that Australia is actually heading into summer.

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

#45

Post by pmoriarty »

xscott wrote: post #30
pmoriarty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 u…

And then what? We're going to impose 2 week quarantines on every flight into the US? Have a dedicated branch of the CDC perform contact tracing on everyone who crosses the borders? I think you greatly overestimate how politics plays into this. It never ends until we're immune.

No.

You just keep testing people, and do isolation and contact tracing on the ones that get sick.

In the meantime, vaccines will start to roll out.

Curbing this pandemic is perfectly practical and within reach, given the will to do it.

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

#46

Post by cryptoz »

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.

Australia and NZ are not America. This is the same mistake Elon made when he suggested the US would have 0 new cases by this past April; the US is not China. The differences are actually so big that comparisons are dangerously misleading.

The problem in the US is that you cant pay people enough to change their minds about the politics. They would be, and many in fact are, millionaires and they would still refuse the test. Even if it meant jail time.

These solutions simply don't work in America.

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

#47

Post by eloff »

threeseed wrote: post #37
eloff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The UK is also next to Europe and a travel and business hub for the world. Australia is next to nothing important and has far less travel to and from the rest of the world.

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

#48

Post by xscott »

ScottBurson wrote: post #29
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…

What you're missing is that a rapid test like this can be used as an entry check at restaurants and other public venues, allowing them to go back into business. Even if the vaccines turn out not to work for some reason, we can have our economy back, while limiting spread of the virus. It's not so much about getting people to fully self-quarantine, although that would be nice, as about eliminating super-spreader event…

I didn't see the turn around time in the article. Just something about "less sensitive test with results today".

I think it's optimistic to assume this could be used as an entry check for a restaurant.

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

#49

Post by eloff »

chii wrote: post #38
eloff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US could never do it because the federal government does not have that authority. They have lacked leadership, but they were also uniquely positioned for a world of hurt going into this.

The UK is doing about as well as similarly populous countries nearby. Which is to say, not well at all.

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

#50

Post by threeseed »

twblalock wrote: post #44
threeseed wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And now UK is a complete mess heading into winter and Australia has effective elimination. Of course it might help that Australia is actually heading into summer .

And it has been eliminated before the summer months.

Also in many places in Australia it was eliminated well before winter.

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