Testing half the population weekly with inexpensive, rapid-turnaround COVID-19 tests would drive the virus toward elimination within weeks—even if those tests are significantly less sensitive than gold-standard clinical tests, according to a new study published today by CU Boulder and Harvard University researchers.
Such a strategy could lead to "personalized stay-at-home orders" without shutting down restaurants, bars, retail stores and schools, the authors said.
"Our big picture finding is that, when it comes to public health, it's better to have a less sensitive test with results today than a more sensitive one with results tomorrow," said lead author Daniel Larremore, an assistant professor of computer science at CU Boulder. "Rather than telling everyone to stay home so you can be sure that one person who is sick doesn't spread it, we could give only the contagious people stay-at-home orders so everyone else can go about their lives."
[...] They then used mathematical modeling to forecast the impact of screening with different kinds of tests on three hypothetical scenarios: in 10,000 individuals; in a university-type setting of 20,000 people; and in a city of 8.4 million.
[...] When it came to curbing spread, they found that frequency and turnaround time are much more important than test sensitivity.
For instance, in one scenario in a large city, widespread twice-weekly testing with a rapid but less sensitive test reduced the degree of infectiousness, or R0 ("R naught"), of the virus by 80%. But twice-weekly testing with a more sensitive PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test, which takes up to 48 hours to return results, reduced infectiousness by only 58%. When the amount of testing was the same, the rapid test always reduced infectiousness better than the slower, more sensitive PCR test.
That's because about two-thirds of infected people have no symptoms and as they await their results, they continue to spread the virus.
"This paper is one of the first to show we should worry less about test sensitivity and, when it comes to public health, prioritize frequency and turnaround," said senior co-author Roy Parker, director of the BioFrontiers Institute and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
Journal Reference:
Daniel B. Larremore, Bryan Wilder, Evan Lester, [et al]. Test sensitivity is secondary to frequency and turnaround time for COVID-19 screening. Science Advances, Nov. 20, 2020; DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd5393
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:06AM
We need lots of tests. Even if they miss some, it'll knock the disease way down.
With the recent upsurge, my state instituted new rules that if you leave the state, you have to get tested less than 72 hours before returning (huh?) or quarantine for 2 weeks upon return. I could get tested Monday and be clear, then contract the virus later Monday, but return with it on Tuesday?
Makes partial sense, but you have to come into contact with people at some point. Guy I know had trip out of state a few days ago, 1 overnight, and he's in quarantine because the tests are backed up more than 1 week. No clue what's going on with that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:07AM (23 children)
Rapid results makes sense, even at the cost of accuracy, up to a point. I mean, you can't have 1/4 of the population getting false positives every two weeks, and another 1/10 getting false negatives. At some point, you have to admit that it's all noise, without any meaningful signal. Soon - like real soon - people just stop cooperating.
Better keep working on the sensitivity.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:30AM (20 children)
Homework: if the probability of getting a false positive is 10%, what is the probability after 7 tests to get at least one false positive**?
If a positive means "Go isolate yourself", you will end with a perpetual lockdown even after you eradicated the virus
--
**
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:47AM (7 children)
Thank you for making my point with maths. ;^)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday November 22 2020, @05:26AM (1 child)
???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:29AM
semi-colon to the close parens power is always funnier.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @05:38AM (4 children)
Umm, your point was not proven. With 7 tests you barely go over 50% chance of a false positive, so if you get a positive test then quarantine and take a new test as soon as you can. It would be up to each area to figure out how many negatives tests would indicate your positive test is false.
Or did you not consider that it takes 7 tests to have a 52% chance of getting ONE positive result?
Also, thanks for pointing out why sometimes authoritarian measures are necessary. In a pandemic requiring a 2 week quarantine is hardly the height of tyranny, but if you're worried about missing work then perhaps you should go talk to your R reps and figure out why they are giving money to large corporations instead of people and small biz?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:03AM (1 child)
Assuming test being taken every 2 days and assuming you need at least two negatives to counter a positive, in a covid extinct situation you'd still have 50% of the population going into isolation for at least 4 days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @10:24PM
The article talks about 1 test every 2 weeks (or half the population every week).
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday November 22 2020, @03:08PM (1 child)
We leave in a zero tolerance society, remember? Once the infrastructure is in place, we will test for flu, hepatitis, aids and so on. Our "precious children" are still there to protect and even one "predator with a bug inside" is enough to take action.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:47PM
These are extraordinary conditions, and it bears repeating.
2-4 weeks of lockdown and quarantining of infected, then limited re-opening with full mask and social distance compliance would allow a near total re-opening with continued safety measures.
Assholes like you who treat masks like the end-times are fucking it up for everyone else. Stupid fucking kids holding huge parties then going home for large thanksgiving events are going to spread COVID to just about every community. Please, send us some more of your oppressed drivel.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:02AM (10 children)
The results of a precise test can be obtained in 24h or less if the pressure on the labs don't overflow their capacity. Worked a charm in Melbourne case.
Took 111 days in which 75% of Melbournians stayed at home (and would have taken 2-3 weeks less if not for an idiot that lied the contact tracers and started two new clusters), but the results are wonderful - today's 3 weeks+ with 0 community cases and 0 deaths, we were announced no masks required outdoors if not in a crowd, restaurants allowing 150 people indoor (up from 30). We keep it like this for 1 more week, we get over the epidemiological threshold of 28 days and we'll likely have as close a normal Christmas as possible (i.e. keep an ear to the news, just in case some other unfortunate mistake let the virus escape from the repats quarantine).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:22PM (5 children)
here's by totally forgoten math:
so 10% is super. we can map outcomes to digits 0 - 9.
only one digit (10%) is interesting.
so let's map this case to the digit "1". (win!) all others map to lose.
now let's combine all possible combinations:
0000000
0000001
...
9999999
so we get 10 million combinations.
let's see how many have a "1" and only one "1":
1000000
0100000
0010000
...
0000001
so there are 7.
so 7 devide by 10 million is the probability for 10% in 7 series?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:55PM
oops.
tbc ... remove one placeholder, so to account for "only one one" so 6 placeholders instead of 7.
also the digit "1" is not usable, only "9" digits are available so
count with "9" symbol to 6 placeholders
9^6 = 531'441
multiply all of 'em 531'441 unique symbol string made up of 9 unique symbols in 6 placeholders by 7 (7 places where a "1" could be and get 3'720'087.
(100 x 3'720'087) devide by all possible symbolstring with 10 symbols and 7 placeholders (10'000'000) and get ... 37.20087?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday November 22 2020, @05:04PM (3 children)
Why "only one 1"? Should've been "at least one 1".
And why all the others digits are suddenly mapped on "0"? Even if the outcome is the same, if you mapped probabilities to 9, then you must use it to compute the number of cases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @09:48PM (2 children)
i thought the original "homework" was rolling a 10 side dice with only 1 green side (all others being red) for a total of 7 times; what are your chances to get one and only one green.
anyways ... i was assuming no one wants green (not even once), cause that means you gotta stay home for two weeks?
so what's the correct number then?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday November 22 2020, @10:31PM
To get "at least one green". Go check.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @03:34AM
1 - (1 - 0.10) ^ 7 = 0.521703
ie. 52%
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @09:15PM (3 children)
Meanwhile in Latvia, all summer new infections were in the single digits with NONE of that craziness. Magic?
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday November 22 2020, @10:35PM (2 children)
Well, while Latvia [www.latvia.travel] were "all summer", we were "all winter". Magic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @01:39AM (1 child)
Dude, the weather in what is called "winter" in Australia is a bit warmer than what is summer in Latvia (should you not know that already, as a professed ex-European?) It is rather to be expected for the respiratory illnesses there to peak differently.
Like in this report from 2019: https://globalnews.ca/news/5435232/australia-flu-season-canada/ [globalnews.ca]
"Usually, flu season doesn’t start until June or July, Booy said. This year, numbers started to pick up in mid-March."
Now, looking at Australian COVID peaks of 2020, I observe end of March and end of July. Isn't the nature predictable?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 23 2020, @03:17AM
Do tell. Really? I wonder how I didn't notice. Perhaps because in winter Aussies gather in closed spaces too.
Go ahead, mate, your ability to predict nature should make you rich in no time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 22 2020, @09:39PM
Not enough data for a meaningful answer.
You would need to know the correlation between those tests. I doubt that it is a purely random error; rather it will probably be some unknown condition of the tested person that will make the test a false positive, with the false positive rate measuring how many people have that condition. If that condition is one that is unlikely to change in the relevant time spans, then the probability of getting a false positive after having gotten a true negative will be close to zero. On the other hand, if that condition is likely to change between those test, the probability of testing positive will be almost unaffected by the results of the previous tests.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @05:28AM
Sensitivity does not measure false positives. The specificity of these tests is assumed to be 100%, but most tests used today are in that range so that assumption isn't unfounded.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:14AM
And while the sensitivity is improved or combinations of tests are developed, in the meantime, it's less of a *public* health "surge" issue and more manageable with current ER/hospital capacity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:10AM
The Largest Military Operation In Human History Could Cripple COVID-19 Within Weeks, Study Shows
The result of sensitivity being less important is really the walk-away from doing that study, but there really isn't the means (or money) to implement. at any national scale in reality.
(And it's just a study-- there needs to be follow-up independent consensus before even that claim can be accepted.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:27AM (1 child)
Testing can only screen out people who already contracted disease, and those with false negatives (due to inaccuracy of the rapid test kits) still spread the disease.
When people are following safety recommendations (wear mask, social distancing, washing your hands and so on), you probably reduce R0 by more then 80%.. I don't understand why people can't follow simple instructions to protect themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @10:26PM
Because it also helps OTHERS, why should they do a thing that might help someone ELSE!
The horrors.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by krishnoid on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:55AM (2 children)
I've got hopes for MIT's cough-based detector [mit.edu], which works pretty well even for asymptomatic cases. Even if only responsible people use it, it's something you don't a swab for, and you'd be coughing into your own phone for an evaluation, which you could do as often as you'd like. They're also still collecting audio samples [mit.edu] if you want to tell your friends to send the audio profile of their filthy germ-ridden eructations to build up the corpus for testing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @09:25PM (1 child)
Maybe because the instructions do NOT protect them? Or is your belief in Omniscient Beneficent Government too strong despite 10 months of proof to the contrary?
Observe the Fat Lot of Good that said instructions had done once the autumn came. Suddenly, yeah. ASOIAF on Earth.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 23 2020, @01:31AM
If that were true, then where are those cases that should have happened in the absence of genuine protection? For example, in the US, new detected cases were growing exponentially for a whole month at a daily rate greater than 20% per day. Now they're well under 2% despite the feared autumn season.
My summer employer reported number of positive test cases. To my knowledge, more than half those reported cases over the summer came from two clusters where people weren't following those instructions that "do NOT protect". They weren't social distancing or wearing masks as I understand it. How does a disease manage to mostly infect people not following those allegedly pointless protection instructions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @05:52AM (1 child)
What happens when scammers begin sending out fake stay-at-home orders?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday November 22 2020, @09:28AM
Where's the profit?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by istartedi on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:49AM
Our policy for the last several months has been, metaphorically, flying VFR into IMC.
If you're too lazy to google that, it's pilot speak for flying in to conditions that require an instrument rating when you're not an instrument rated pilot. Not testing is like not having an altimeter or any other data on what our status is. It's no surprise we're cork-screwing in to the ground.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gringer on Sunday November 22 2020, @09:35AM (4 children)
It's a waste of money to test when the case rate is as high as it is in the US. What possible benefit could it have? Are people going to be more likely to stay at home if they think they've got COVID-19?
In the US, the probability is essentially 1 that one of the people you have been next to for more than 15 minutes in the last two weeks has COVID-19. In which case you should stay home and isolate away from others, because there's a high risk that the virus has also infected you.
Spend that testing money on people who need it. Assume that everyone is infected (or every second person, if it makes people act more urgently), and behave accordingly. That means staying at home. It means shutting down any work that doesn't keep people living and healthy. It means freezing anything that could increase the debt people have. It means giving people whatever they need to survive away from others.
Complete lockdown. For at least a month. It needs to be done six months ago, but now is the second-best time. Lock down now, or COVID-19 will do it for you, decimating the population because there'll be no hospitals available to help people live with the disease.
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @09:57AM (1 child)
Agreed. Unfortunately, people still need money for necessities and the federal government doesn't have any interest in providing that and the states can't afford it, so instead we're stuck hoping the current trend magically reverses and we somehow manage to not completely run out of hospital capacity.
Testing does (1) let you know your progress and (2) let you know your true testing capacity which is part of what determines at what infection rate you could accept weaker measures.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:48PM
I'd point out that a bill to *specifically* address your concerns was passed by the House on 20 May 2020, but over the past six months has yet to be voted (or even debated) on the floor of the Senate. [congress.gov]
As such, it's not strictly true that "the federal government doesn't have any interest in providing that." Rather it's the Senate that hasn't debated the bill (except for a hearing held on 23 July 2020 in the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship).
Why hasn't this bill been debated on the floor of the Senate? I'll leave the answer as an exercise for the reader.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @04:56PM (1 child)
Agreed. Now what is your plan for locking down the entire world for a month? How effective is a lock down, when 24 hours after lock down an asymptomatic world traveler walks through airport security and the whole thing starts over again. I mean, we can't even eliminate TB from the world and it's far more contained than covid every will be.
There will always be a source of covid in the world for as long as there are people with no immunity who are able to get it and spread it. Our goods and services depend on a global market. No country in the world can afford to close it's borders forever. Especially the so called first world countries. So really, nothing short of permanent lockdown will ever work. How many years will you be comfortable with lockdown? One? Two? A decade? Maybe an entire generation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2020, @04:48PM
Not at all the same thing. TB is a bacterial infection and bacteria are very different from viruses. Most importantly, unlike viruses, bacteria are organisms that reproduce on their own.
This is not a given. Because viruses can only reproduce with the help of an infected host cell, then if you can sufficiently reduce the spread rate of a virus then it will eventually die off. Once that happens then people with no immunity cannot get it or spread it because there is simply no virus left to infect them.
Most people alive today have no immunity to smallpox. Yet we don't need to worry about these people getting or spreading smallpox. It is quite possible we will see Polio go the same way in the near future. And if the vaccines end up being as effective as initial signs suggest maybe we will add COVID-19 to the list (but this is being very optimistic).
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Rich on Sunday November 22 2020, @11:25AM (11 children)
The authors happily assume that a positive test has any effect. Deniers will ignore it, so will informal workers who want food on the table, religious nutcases will congretate to pray the disease away and certain parallel cultures will still measure social status in size of wedding gatherings.
The price of free (mis)information and free thought is that we'll end up with a solid amount of idiocy in the population. This is generally considered acceptable, because the benefits of freedom outweigh the damage by the idiocy. (Those liberals who whine loudest about maintaining freedoms out the front door are the first to monetize that idiocy out the back door, the more, the better).
I've come to the conclusion that there are three basic ways out of the misery, and, as the saying goes, "we have to die one death".
1.) A million deaths (per 100M). For those who value freedom over all. Far less lives than the Red Army lost when liberating Europe from un-freedom and therefore absolutely worth it. Give it all into private hands and responsibility. Unfortunately, there will be also a million cripples weighing down the economy. Infrastructure will collapse, the Chinese will buy everything and make sure option 3 is chosen the next time. Fast antigen tests are mandatory on private grounds for private gatherings of the elite. The extra $50 entrance fee for testing guarantees exclusivity. Positive tests end up on private lists and are correlated with tracking data from the internet, those tested positive need not apply for any more private gathering (unless they convince the correlators otherwise, with a large payment).
2.) Bankruptcy. For incumbent politicians. Do as little as possible. Lock down only when the situation becomes unbearable (rather than four weeks before, with a fraction of the damage) and loosen measures when the moaning of the idiots becomes too loud. Fast antigen tests let politicians pretend they can do something about the situation and win a bit time with the population anger. Eventually, a vaccine appears and helps somewhat, but too many anti-vaxxers run around for it to be reliable. In the end, the economy is broken, one year of education was lost, the Chinese buy everything and make sure option 3 is chosen the next time.
3.) Drop human rights. For those who want the "simple" solution. Close the borders. Immediately lock down with only essential business going on. Conscript those out of a job for the lockdown to handle tracing, checking, and supplying those in quarantine. Raise an extra tax (about as high as the service economy now does not get) to pay them. Have a mandatory smartphone app tracing all locations and all contacts with reliable ID. There's a checkpoint on every corner, evaders are shot. Back-trace every contact from a positive test, and hard-quarantine all contacts of the last two weeks. Quarantine-breakers would be easily detected on checkpoints, and interned. After four weeks the population is mostly clear, businesses can re-open, and a lighter tracing regime (still with the app) can be instated. Fast antigen tests can maybe cut that by 10 days. Borders open with a 2-week isolation period, including tests, on immigration. Unfortunately, you now have all components for a totalitarian regime in place that the most greedy and corrupt politicians will secure for them, and you end in a dystopian future.
There's also the variation of being on an island, or isolated peninsula, with traditionally strong anti-immigration measures, having a halfway reasonable population, and a government that understood what "exponential" means. People living there can consider themselves lucky. (Here in Germany you'll get looks as if you're the re-incarnation of Adolf Hitler and Walter Ulbricht combined, if you even raise the idea of a 14-day border internment, while all the trouble-free nations have that, or in the case of NZ even harder limitations).
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:30PM (5 children)
Similar to driving, "walking in public is not a right, but a privilege". This simple change will solve all the issues, while straightening fascists system we already have.
Note that "showing your face in public privilege" is already implemented.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday November 22 2020, @03:12PM (4 children)
The Chinese did exactly that. No green light on your phone app, no walking in public. Which I don't think is bad as such under pandemic conditions, but is horrible because of the surveillance infrastructure needed to implement it.
Yet as a result they now throw water park parties again in Wuhan, and, in total, the Chinese economy will effectively have gained a few years on the "old" economy once this is over.
Short of a miracle, we're effectively doomed (as far as "business as usual" goes, at least). Stomping feet or insulting the messenger doesn't help.
It is noteworthy that everyday surveillance in Singapore is even worse than anywhere in China, yet the Singaporeans do nothing about it, and some even welcome what's probably the purest implementation of fascism anywhere in the world right now.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:26PM (3 children)
On the other hand Russians did exactly the opposite. They let people do as people pleased and are having mass parties as well. They just treat sick and develop vaccine as fast as they could.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday November 22 2020, @08:39PM (1 child)
Well, the Russians are a bit tougher than the rest, and a bit more risk-friendly - as can be seen with their early vaccine deployment. And they drink a whole lot more, that leaves less elderly to die from disease (although I note their life expectancy has increased by almost 10 years in the last two decades), and eases any sufferings for the younger ones...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @05:59AM
Most Russians have disinfectant running through their vascular system, seeping out their pores. Maybe not such a bad thing after all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @10:32PM
I can confirm that at least at one point Russia closed down due to Covid.
I work at a multinational, with a Russian branch. My Russian coworkers explained Covid was the reason that they were cancelling some meetings and said that the entire country was on lock-down.
(Score: 3, Troll) by shortscreen on Sunday November 22 2020, @05:10PM (3 children)
There are many examples of countries suffering casualties in a war that were far more dire than COVID's 99.xx% survival rate. In fact, if the enemy hit them with a biological weapon that was later found to have a survival rate of 99+% they would probably laugh it off. So I don't know how you got from there to "infrastructure will collapse." I mean, if you're talking about the USA then the infrastructure was already crumbling, so OK, but it won't be because of public health. How do I know that? We already have 200,000,000 people who are overweight and a substantial portion of them are or will be limping along with metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, and mobility issues. The amount of public will to do anything about this, let alone go full authoritarianism, has been zilch. On the contrary, it's a marketing opportunity for health care providers, food producers, and clothing retailers. Getting fat is not as scary as a virus.
Arguments from emotion are so pervasive that people are afraid to talk about it, but a disease that is only dangerous to the elderly and spares nearly all younger people is not an existential threat to any country. Try to prove me wrong. There are legal, economic, and moral arguments to be made here, but they are separate and need to be justified independently.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday November 22 2020, @08:29PM (2 children)
First off, in this cynical scenario 1, the dead are actually a good thing, because they are mostly from population groups that consume much more than they contribute to the bottom line. I was making the assumption that if 2% of the workforce drop out with permanent damage (kids don't, and the elderly die) and draw up another 0.5%-1% of workforce for care-taking, that's enough damage done to an unguided western economy that it won't be able to recover from, especially with the competition from the totalitarian guided Asian economies, and the extra debt piled up. This is done under the assumption that the ruling class is as unable to set the economy back on course as it is to contain the disease. The ultra-libertarian approach to people incapacitated by the disease would be to let them suffer to death by the roadside ("they could have foreseen the risk and insured themselves..."), but that would likely spark riots on a scale that also crash the economy.
You make a very valid point about the damage done to the US population by overweightness, though. The medical damage done by that might well serve as a guideline what consequences to expect, and they might not be as dire as I wrote.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Monday November 23 2020, @04:27AM (1 child)
Anyone who suffers serious lingering health problems after COVID would hopefully be able to qualify for social security disability. Just for the sake of some additional data points to consider, it seems there are currently 13 million people on SSD. This is bigger than 2% of the workforce but also much smaller than the number of retirees collecting social security. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/ [ssa.gov]
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Monday November 23 2020, @07:23AM
It's extremely difficult to convince the government to award SSD (or SSI), even if the person is completely disabled and has a specialty lawyer handling everything:
Quora: How Hard Is It To Get SSD? [quora.com] (best comprehensive source I could find)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:57PM
"Far less lives than the Red Army lost when liberating Europe from un-freedom and therefore absolutely worth it."
the Jewish "Murder Whitey For Standing Up For Himself" Army.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:20PM
See https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/ [microbe.tv]
Will work in a controlled or elightened environment, neither of which the US has except in special cases.
Which still leaves us to just muddle through.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:15PM (7 children)
A major study [nature.com] just released from China seems to suggest that asymptomatic people may not be spreading the virus. China engaged in a massive series of tests in 'post covid' Wuhan - nearly 10 million. They found exactly 0 symptomatic carriers, but they did find a few hundred asymptomatic carriers. But the interesting thing is that in following up every single person the asymptomatic cases have had any contact with, they found exactly 0 infections.
If this ends up being accurate (there are reason the study may be potentially valid, yet inaccurate for the US - such as viral mutation) it would throw everything we know about the virus upside down since testing of asymptomatic individuals would be pointless. Personally I do not understand why we, or China, simply do not engage in the obvious test. Take an asymptomatic person, have them interact in a way that would spread the virus to a compensated volunteer, and see if the volunteer catches the virus. This shouldn't be a mystery or something that needs to rely on models and testing results.
The US mainstream media is, predictably, not covering the story. If you'd like media coverage (instead of just the study link) there is coverage available here [rt.com].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Sunday November 22 2020, @04:38PM (1 child)
Such a low rate - a few hundred from 10 million - of people who a essentially healthy as they show no symptoms could mean anything from a mutated virus as you mentioned to a specific genome of the people who were carriers. Perhaps some people just don't shed the virus or shed, but an extremely weakened by immune system version.
Also, the theory that asymptomatic spread the virus is also based on super carriers - only some rare individuals infect, but they infect many many people.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @10:21AM
It was false positives. Read the paper. They did 37 cycles for these positives and 40+ to be negative where CDC recommends no more than about 27 or 28 for positive cases.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:41PM (2 children)
A massive study just released on Breitbart and OANN has revealed that two plus two is equal to seventeen. If this ends up being accurate, it would throw everything we know about arithmetic upside down.
The US mainstream media is, predictably, not covering the story. *Shaking head* What is the lib'rul media trying to hide????
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:42PM
Pretty obvious, but if you need it spelled out: Anything that might make Trump look good.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @03:40AM
It's a peer reviewed study published in one of the most prestigious journals that exist. This is why the absence of coverage in the mainstream media is even more telling.
Most of the mainstream media has been pushing for even more authoritarian economy destroying lockdowns while simultaneous framing anybody and everybody, who is anything less than 100% on board, in all sorts of awful ways. That it may have been the case, as it often is, that the popular media was completely wrong is obviously not something they're especially happy to consider.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @10:19AM (1 child)
Perhaps false positives?? Have you ever considered that? Have you read your article?
Oh right, you should have read the actual paper. These "asymptomatic cases" probably had no live virus in them in any case. Fragments of the virus they picked up, yes, but not live virus. Ct-value should have been at less 30 to be positive ;) But oh well. If you you look for needles carefully enough in a hay stack, maybe every piece could be a needle too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @05:24PM
Is looking for needles in a hay stack any worse than ignoring the hay stack? In real science you explore all the possibilities. Not just the results that prove your belief.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:53PM (5 children)
I'd rather die than have some government app telling me whether i can leave my house or not. This is all about control. Death to (medical) tyrants!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:40PM (4 children)
I'd rather you die than spread the virus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @01:01AM (2 children)
Shouldn't you then preemptively screen the population and cull the infected? That's the only way that statement makes any kind of sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @06:06AM (1 child)
You either missed the word "than", or you don't understand its meaning.
Which seems to be a frequent problem here- a few people gloss over logically critical words, reword what someone wrote, then dispute their own fabrication. Is that schizophrenia? Not sure, just asking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @05:41PM
I didn't, I just made the logical connections. People with the virus will spread it, and you say they should die rather than spread, thus cull the infected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @06:09PM
good luck with that, you stupid cowardly piece of shit.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday November 22 2020, @10:42PM (8 children)
Right now everyone who is for lockdown and such are assuming that science will find vaccines, drugs or both and soon. If so, China and vicinity will be huge winners as they avoided most of the costs and will just treat the whole population at once.
Suppose though if pessimists like myself are right and we will not get treatments any time soon. What will happen? Yes, exactly, the US dream will happen as sooner or later China will loose the control and the pandemic will run and the region will collapse.
Meantime the US, perhaps short of a million folks, will be sharp and ready. As well as Russia.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @04:11AM
But you are making one huge and, in my opinion, unsupported assumption: that lockdowns work. It's an obvious and intuitive idea, but so are many things that are ultimately found to be incorrect. Various studies that have looked at the topic have found that internal lockdowns have been mostly ineffective. I'll look at this in three ways:
1) Some guys with doctorates and grandeloquent language saying [thelancet.com] the same thing. The one primary thing that predicts how well or how poorly a nation will fare against COVID is personal health. Obesity is the primary predictor of poor results and is directly predictive of on increased mortality, increasing hospitalization rates, etc. Obese people are very vulnerable to this virus (among countless other things) and the average obesity level of a nation is reliable predictor of how it will do against COVID. This is made even more interesting by the fact that lockdowns in the US have been substantially increasing our obesity problem due to increasingly sedentary lifestyles alongside greatly increased alcohol consumption. And the mortality rate of the virus is increasing. Go figure.
2) Increasingly obvious evidence. Sweden has had an aggregate death toll of 633/million after running on a response of basically 'do nothing'. They had no major lockdowns and life continued on pretty much business as usual. The US in the middle of the pack with a death toll of 792. And finally there is Spain which has not only had some of the most extreme lockdowns on this planet, but also has the 5th highest death rate at 911. There are obviously some countries that had lockdowns that did okay, and some countries that did not have lockdowns that did not do okay. The point I make is that the evidence shows with reasonable clarity that lockdowns do not really correlate with success, at all.
3) Anecdotal. A member in my family is immunocompromised due to an organ transplant. They are also a healthcare professional and did all they possible could to ensure a perfectly safe lockdown, even including sterilizing the packaging of foods and groceries to ensure no surface level contamination was possible, wearing eye protection very early on, etc. They still caught it, somehow. Interestingly enough they also recovered, more or less fully, after about a month without hospitalization being necessary.
----
So you can put me into a third group. I propose not only are lockdowns ineffective, but I also believe that vaccines will also ultimately prove ineffective for reasons outside the scope of this post. And so the only solution will ultimately be to do as we have done for the countless plagues throughout history, many much worse than this: get on with it, ride it out, and come out stronger as a result. And to help avoid such outcomes in the future people need to gain some self discipline and stop eating so damned much, but we also need to start taking obesity more seriously. The 'body positive' movement, embraced by the media and by politicians, was one of the dumbest and most self destructive things possible.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday November 23 2020, @06:27AM (6 children)
Yeah, it's tricky.
If you're quite healthy, and can mostly avoid people, and most everyone else gets immunized and pretty much stops COVID, you might get away without getting vaccinated.
It will all depend on how many people refuse / avoid vaccination, and how much those un-vaccinated people come into contact with each other.
If everyone else gets vaccinated, and 5% or so still get sick, you have a risk of catching it from them, and also spreading it to more of the 5% for whom the vaccine doesn't work.
The problem, as we all know, is the asymptomatic carrier / spreaders, which you could become if you don't get vaccinated.
Here's a question: if someone gets vaccinated and it works, can they still be a carrier / spreader?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rich on Monday November 23 2020, @09:14AM (1 child)
If it works, there will basically be no spread. The dangerous spreading mostly occurs (according to C. Drosten, but cf new Chinese report) around asymptomatic infection days 4-5 and symptomatic days 6-7. After that, infectiousness drops off and is mostly gone by day 14. We can therefore assume that the high viral load that causes symptoms (body cleans out infected cells, maybe overreacts with cytokines) exists before symptoms in an asymptomatic state. If the vaccination avoids symptoms in all patients, it is a pretty safe assumption that the vaccine-induced antibodies don't cause the viral load to rise to dangerous levels in the first place. The same thing would hold for an anti-viral agent that catches the virus by its ACE2 affinity, or synthetic antibodies (but you'd need a huge lot of fast and sensitive testing to know when to apply those before it is too late, or administer them in advance). It would not hold for a medication that modulates the immune response in a way that it can clean up, but does not badly hurt the organism in the course.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday November 23 2020, @02:06PM
Wow, that makes sense. A gem of useful information, thank you.
And of course, dovetail in the hygiene / habits of someone infected. At the start of the pandemic, medical experts talked about covering your mouth when coughing, especially using your elbow.
Best to quarantine, of course, but even then you can spread the germs onto everything in your environment, and possibly spread it depending if you live with people, or somehow come into contact, maybe mail / ship a package. A report came out some weeks ago that SARS-CoV-2 virus can survive on hard surfaces for up to 28 days, so even if infected person pretty much stops shedding, could still be carrier / spreader. I think, anyway, but maybe it's much lessened and almost negligible? Well, not negligible if someone could get infected from visiting someone who had COVID say 24 days prior.
Thanks again.
(Score: 3, Informative) by legont on Monday November 23 2020, @01:23PM (3 children)
I am not sure I got my point across. Yes, I do believe that lock-down works. However, it does not work forever. Sooner or later it will stop working and then one needs different ways to fight the disease.
If vaccines and/or drugs are found earlier, one definitely wins if the lock-down is total at the border and the internal life is going as usual from economy point of view. Everybody thinks China, but Thailand, the closest US ally over there, implemented even stronger measures.
If, on the other hand, the lock-downs fails earlier than vaccines are found, but later than competitors achieved herd immunity naturally, all bets are off. It would be especially true for China where a major crisis is coming anyway simply by pure economy reasons. Chinese would have enough trouble with it by itself and they know it. They might not be able to handle a pandemic at the same time. That's why they are so unusually aggressive.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday November 23 2020, @02:39PM (2 children)
Thank you for furthering your great explanation. Actually I did understand and agree with what you wrote originally. It inspired some thoughts and I went in a somewhat different direction, thinking more about the mechanics and dynamics of the disease itself, and somewhat less from the geopolitical / economic view. But they all interact and interplay.
Due to the general climate here on SN, and the downmodding for anything that can even be remotely connected to politics, I prefer to stay out of political discussions. Politics is so complex, and I'm actually very cynical about anyone who desires to be in government no matter which label they choose. I just feel that the desire for power doesn't come from a good place, and it's difficult to find good leaders anyway. Our (USA) system doesn't choose the great leaders; rather we get to choose (vote) for the people who enter themselves in the competition. Sigh. I'll say this: I wish there was a way we could do away with political parties and just have government that represent us, the people. But I'm optimistic going forward. I think most of us in the US are very weary of the politics on top of pandemic, and we'll start compromising and working together.
All that said, in spite of what the news media says, we USA don't hate China at all. I personally think they're extremely clever, and play much dirtier game, for example all of the cheap products that break easily, are copies (knock-off) of expensive brands, child / forced labor, long hours, worker safety, environmental damages. I know their govt. does try to enforce many laws like worker and environment protection, but the country is so big it's difficult to do. Some of their government have a very competitive attitude, including disparaging the US as a "military threat". We have many allies in China's neighborhood, especially Taiwan, and that really bothers the CCP who want to annex Taiwan. Well, they don't consider Taiwan as sovereign, so there's the constant saber-rattling. But I haven't even touched the surface of global politics, and it's so complex that any summary would be too incomplete and a waste of time.
The only thing I'll add regarding China is there is some sentiment in the US that China wasn't forthcoming about SARS-CoV-2 initially and that allowed the carelessness of too much travel and spreading of the disease in the US and around the world. But I'm not sure they really knew enough about it themselves, and the whole world is still learning things about SARS-CoV-2. The more we (the world) share information and work together, the sooner we can get it under control and return to, well, whatever "normal" life is.
But again, you make good points and I agree, and I'm optimistic that enough strategic vaccination will all but stop SARS-CoV-2.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday November 23 2020, @03:06PM (1 child)
There is an old and true scientific fact that history is ruled by numbers. Based on numbers, the US leadership is obviously over and the Chinese century has started already.
We have a choice here; actually, three choices. We can start a cold war which we will lose the same as Soviets did (that's what we recently won so many people believe we can do it again). We can work on a kill such as internal Chinese revolt and splitting of the country which could be triggered by economic crises or pandemic or both (that's the old British strategy). Finally, we can gracefully transfer the leadership and live happily on our extremely rich and beautiful island called North America and let them suckers sort their issues themselves.
I want the 3rd option and for as long as I live I will use whatever tools I have to persuade other people. I don't want no fucking war.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday November 23 2020, @04:39PM
Option 3 for me and most of USA. I don't like saying or writing it, but some of the Chinese seem very competitive and determined to conquer the world. Not sure why. 20 years ago I worked with a Chinese national here (USA) on work visa. He was pretty introverted, but a couple of times he said "we (China) will conquer you". I wish the world could just live in peace, harmony, fair trade, sharing of ideas, education, etc. Too much competitiveness in the world, and not the "healthy" kind like Olympics or soccer or whatever, but rather military. No need for it. And sadly, very few people on earth want the aggression, but also sadly those people are the ones who desire and attain political power. And even more sadly, we've learned that if we want peace, we have to have big military. I'm trying to be optimistic though. At least the Middle East seems to be making strides in peace agreements. But we all know those don't always last long. But who knows. Maybe the "information age" is helping the young people learn how much destruction occurs due to all the aggression, and maybe they'll usher in more peaceful coexistence.