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    Rolling Along backtrack2015's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Overtaxed View Post
    How are cases not going to bloom? That's the thing, it seems like a lot of magical thinking here, if we just test enough, cases won't go up after we reopen. I don't see how those two things are related, if we reopen and people aren't wearing masks, it's going to "bloom"; we all pretty much know that (which is why states are talking about opening and then closing as needed). Yes, testing will let us see that faster than waiting for hospitalization numbers, that's true, but testing isn't going to stop the blooming, it's just going to let us know it's happening faster. Not that this is without value, it is; I'd just MUCH rather we focus on how we can provide enough PPE to prevent the blooms in the first place.
    You're arguing the obvious here. No amount of testing (that is realistic) will make you feel 100% safe on a plane or inside a gym. "N95 for all" is a fine goal and would undoubtedly help lower transmission if you could get enough people to wear them.

    Yes, blooming in response to opening is fully expected. The question is how much is it blooming? Growth of cases at 30% per day is real bad news when you discover you've provoked it three weeks later because you'll need to slam the door completely shut again. It's much easier to handle if you detect it within 5 days and retrace a couple of your steps. No magical thinking here; it's actually a very cold Darwinian thinking.

    Edit: In TX, the hospital utilization rate (beds taken vs beds available) has been hovering in the range of 10%. The Governor wants to open the economy as much as he can without exceeding a utilization rate of X%. The cases/deaths associated with the delta between 10% and X% is a cost we are willing to pay. I agree that good behavior and N95 masks could greatly reduce the costs associated with any given level of economic activity... or increase the economic activity possible at X-10% cost.
    Last edited by backtrack2015; 05-12-2020 at 09:08 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Overtaxed View Post
    In general, I think we're in agreement, I'm not trying to troll or pick a fight here, I just think that we should focus more on what "really works" (masks) rather than what "should work" (do the right thing) or gathering data in the hopes that we can use that data to do "something" that might work.
    No troll or fight. You missed something....leadership and messaging. If it's not there from the top some people will discredit what comes from other places, even if they are the experts. Crimminy, look how many conspiracy theories and other untruths have sprouted in the last 3 months. In the end unfortunately you are correct, people will be people.
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    There's a reason that we won't have more testing. It's so there will be less confirmed cases, which makes it look like the virus hasn't spread as bad as people think so it'll be safe to reopen.
    If everyone got tested during a month or so the number of infected people would sky rocket. Then the public would get real nervous about going out.
    It's the 'Outta sight outta mind' thing.

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    It's much easier to handle if you detect it within 5 days and retrace a couple of your steps. No magical thinking here; it's actually a very cold Darwinian thinking.
    But how much testing would that take? To detect it in 5 days, you'll need to test healthy people, and a LOT of them. That's the "magical thinking" in my eyes, we can't even conceive of testing everyone every day (at least, I don't think so), we can't even test sick people in some areas yet. Anything other than constant, pervasive testing and all you're really doing is trying to figure out "did the horse leave the barn a few months ago". And the real target of that testing has to be the healthy, the sick we already have plenty of stats on (doctor visits, hospital admissions, etc). Yes, if we get to the point where we can all wake up, and take an at home type data linked test, that would work (and work well), but we might as well say "we're going to replace air travel with transporters" as a way to fix it at that point, we don't have the technology to do it and the government doesn't (thank goodness) have the right to force us to use the technology, even if it did exist.

    I guess this comes down to my view on life in general, I'm much, much less confident in the government's ability to do some huge/widespread program effectively that requires the vast majority of citizens to agree with/submit to than I am my own ability to put on a mask (if I could get one) when I'm going out. Appealing to people's personal self-interest (put this on, you'll be safer/safe) is typically wildly more effective than appealing to one's sense of community or care for their common man (test yourself every day, and if you are positive, self-isolate). If I'm betting money, I'm guessing that "this will protect me" is a much, much better way to get people to actually do something to stop this. Also, masks are highly visible, no mask, no entry. Pretty easy. Testing is not, it's great for statistical analysis and I could spend days looking at that kind of data trying to tease out information (it's what I do much of my day anyway). I'm sure I'd find it interesting. But it's kind of like if we sent people into some village in Africa that had recently been hit with smallpox. Sure, you could get a lot of data from watching the spread and you could even advise them in ways the community can pull together to stop the spread. Or, you could give them some penicillin (N95) a know protective/cure for the disease. We seem to be focused on the data gathering aspect rather than the "how do we make enough of the known protective measures", that's my issue.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Overtaxed View Post
    ... Or, "how are you going to alter your company behavior based on this massive amount of info", again, blank stares.<face palm>
    I'm surprised that, as an information person, you confused the terms "data" and "info/information." Data, in and of itself, is not information. Information is data with meaning to the user. The blank stares are the result of the users not knowing how to interpret the data to make information out of it.

    Over on the Escapees forum, a very long - and sometimes rancorous - thread has gone back and forth on the CoViD-19 topic for some time now. One of the best posts in the thread was made by and "old" (his term) retired pilot. An "old" retired physician that he used to fly into remote tribal areas for medical research called him in early January to give him a heads-up on the coming pandemic and advising him to stay put where they are isolated in the southwestern desert. Anyway, the pilot gave a pretty good treatise on the concept of situational awareness. The definition of this concept is: "... the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status." He talked about how SA applies to both aviation and the current pandemic situation. The conclusion is that we are "DRIP" - data rich, information poor (another term with which you are probably familiar) and most of the population has no understanding of the concept of SA - much less the ability to apply it.

    I agree that testing is not the panacea for this pandemic. Getting through it will require a multi-pronged approach and few of the models will be terribly accurate until scientists have a better understanding of this specific virus, how it mutates, and how our bodies react to to it (i.e. immunity). On an almost weekly basis, we're still discovering new ways this virus ravages the body and organ systems four months into this nightmare. It may have been confusing to some when he said it, but Donald Rumsfeld made some valid points when he said:

    "... there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult."

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    Rolling Along backtrack2015's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Overtaxed View Post
    But how much testing would that take? To detect it in 5 days, you'll need to test healthy people, and a LOT of them. That's the "magical thinking" in my eyes, we can't even conceive of testing everyone every day (at least, I don't think so), we can't even test sick people in some areas yet. Anything other than constant, pervasive testing and all you're really doing is trying to figure out "did the horse leave the barn a few months ago". And the real target of that testing has to be the healthy, the sick we already have plenty of stats on (doctor visits, hospital admissions, etc). Yes, if we get to the point where we can all wake up, and take an at home type data linked test, that would work (and work well), but we might as well say "we're going to replace air travel with transporters" as a way to fix it at that point, we don't have the technology to do it and the government doesn't (thank goodness) have the right to force us to use the technology, even if it did exist.

    I guess this comes down to my view on life in general, I'm much, much less confident in the government's ability to do some huge/widespread program effectively that requires the vast majority of citizens to agree with/submit to than I am my own ability to put on a mask (if I could get one) when I'm going out. Appealing to people's personal self-interest (put this on, you'll be safer/safe) is typically wildly more effective than appealing to one's sense of community or care for their common man (test yourself every day, and if you are positive, self-isolate). If I'm betting money, I'm guessing that "this will protect me" is a much, much better way to get people to actually do something to stop this. Also, masks are highly visible, no mask, no entry. Pretty easy. Testing is not, it's great for statistical analysis and I could spend days looking at that kind of data trying to tease out information (it's what I do much of my day anyway). I'm sure I'd find it interesting. But it's kind of like if we sent people into some village in Africa that had recently been hit with smallpox. Sure, you could get a lot of data from watching the spread and you could even advise them in ways the community can pull together to stop the spread. Or, you could give them some penicillin (N95) a know protective/cure for the disease. We seem to be focused on the data gathering aspect rather than the "how do we make enough of the known protective measures", that's my issue.
    The issue with random testing is scale and getting people to participate. The issue with masks is scale of manufacturing and getting people to wear them. I'd be happy to enthusiastically support N95 manufacturing at scale as well as continued expansion and improvement in testing. It does not need to be one or the other, and both have real benefits.

    I agree that when you can convince people "this will help YOU" you will get far better compliance than when you argue "this will help OTHERS."
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    I just want to say that all of you are having a great conversation and want to personally thank you all for not getting political (I know it is difficult) and making this an interesting thread to read.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Second Chance View Post
    I'm surprised that, as an information person, you confused the terms "data" and "info/information." Data, in and of itself, is not information. Information is data with meaning to the user. The blank stares are the result of the users not knowing how to interpret the data to make information out of it.

    I agree that testing is not the panacea for this pandemic. Getting through it will require a multi-pronged approach and few of the models will be terribly accurate until scientists have a better understanding of this specific virus, how it mutates, and how our bodies react to to it (i.e. immunity). On an almost weekly basis, we're still discovering new ways this virus ravages the body and organ systems four months into this nightmare. It may have been confusing to some when he said it, but Donald Rumsfeld made some valid points when he said:

    "... there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult."

    Rob
    The "blank stares" are a result of having information that is in no way actionable. Like my bearing example, we had data and from that data, we created information (this bearing doesn't need to be replaced as often), however, the entire exercise didn't need to happen because there was no way to make that data/information into action (because it was controlled by an uncontrollable 3rd party, IE, the regulations that said you must change this bearing at XX hours). Now, could they use this to argue that rule? Yes, they could, and they may eventually succeed, but, in my engine "big data" example (which, is actually a real project I worked on) we would have been much more effective looking at a variable actually under the companies control than one that is out of it. Can we make the bearing out of steel vs titanium? Or can we use a different oil that's cheaper? (I have no idea if these would have been permitted either, just examples). Or, we could have gone to the mechanics and asked "when you're doing the 10K hour service, what parts come out looking good and what comes out looking worn" because, at least in this case, they all already knew that changing that bearing was a waste of money/time, it came out looking like it went in.

    So, relating this to COVID, yes, you could argue that some of this massive data collection effort is actionable. Open up/close down for example. I'd argue you can know that without massive amounts of testing just by looking at hospital beds, but, either perhaps massive scale testing will give you an earlier indicator, IF, and only if, you can start testing healthy people (before they get symptoms) on a regular enough basis (which, I think is a fools errand, but, I'll concede, if you can do this, as was mentioned those near the president are doing, yes, you could actually "get in front of it"; testing people every day would be effective if it somehow becomes possible). Or, you could go to the "mechanic" and ask them what they think. "Hey, Doc, how do you protect yourself from COVID"? And the answer is blindingly obvious, "A mask that can stop the virus particles, for COVID in particular, N95 or N100". We don't need this massive data collection effort, we need to look at what works for those working closely with the disease and mimic that. Testing is backwards looking (how bad is it) rather than forward looking (how do we keep it from getting worse).

    I'm not saying we shouldn't do testing, we should. But if we're trying to scale anything right now, it should be for N95 masks, not test kits. Test kits let us get accurate numbers, masks let us reduce those numbers.

    The issue with random testing is scale and getting people to participate. The issue with masks is scale of manufacturing and getting people to wear them. I'd be happy to enthusiastically support N95 manufacturing at scale as well as continued expansion and improvement in testing. It does not need to be one or the other, and both have real benefits.
    Agreed. The issue with testing is that those not participating are hurting others, where, with masks, those not "participating" are hurting themselves. I'm much much more comfortable with the latter situation than the former. You don't want to wear a mask, no problem, carry on and wish you the best. No skin off my nose, because I'm protected (at least "reasonably well"). You don't want to get tested? Well, now what? And you can lie about testing negative. And it's only good for a few hours (or minutes, in a close contact situation) before the results may not be valid anymore. A mask is a visible sign, it can be easily enforced, and it's effective to protect the wearer, not some amorphous "other people".

    But I do agree, we need to do both. It's just that all I hear in the news is "more people tested" and "ramping up testing" rather than "we have the armed forces cranking out masks and expect to have one to every US household in the next 2 weeks". In fact, what I do hear is "If you have or can get a N95 mask, give it to a doctor, they need it more than you" and also "N95s are only effective for doctors/front line works" (ugh, what?). The first, yes, I agree and understand why that's the case, but why are we letting that situation persist while we "ramp up testing"?

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    I'm gonna play devils advocate here. For the most part I agree on the testing but it would help track down hot spots faster and could allow for more limited lockdowns.

    Quote Originally Posted by Overtaxed View Post
    I guess this comes down to my view on life in general, I'm much, much less confident in the government's ability to do some huge/widespread program effectively that requires the vast majority of citizens to agree with/submit to than I am my own ability to put on a mask (if I could get one) when I'm going out. Appealing to people's personal self-interest (put this on, you'll be safer/safe) is typically wildly more effective than appealing to one's sense of community or care for their common man (test yourself every day, and if you are positive, self-isolate). If I'm betting money, I'm guessing that "this will protect me" is a much, much better way to get people to actually do something to stop this. Also, masks are highly visible, no mask, no entry. Pretty easy.
    Tell that to the people who are getting assaulted or even shot over being required to were masks and their not even required to wear N95's. Ever wear one?, I have one for client meetings and after about 30 min's I'm ready to rip my face off. My wife's face turns red and breaks out after just being in the grocery store. I'm sure some may be better but the ones we have are 3M. We have dropped back to KN95's which seem to be more comfortable, at least the ones we have. Are they effective,???? but then again I think the mask thing in general is not very effective. The overconfidence they can generate is just as big a problem. Seems when I'm at the store that people think the mask now takes the place of not standing on top of each other

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...-face-n1202546
    https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/l...loyee/2360527/
    https://herald-review.com/news/local...6eb51334e.html

    Quote Originally Posted by Overtaxed View Post
    Or, you could give them some penicillin (N95) a know protective/cure for the disease. We seem to be focused on the data gathering aspect rather than the "how do we make enough of the known protective measures", that's my issue.
    An N95 is not a "cure". Can it help, sure if used properly. How many people do you think can handle that? don't scratch your face, don't itch your eye, don't touch the outside of the mask while taking it on or off, etc,etc,etc. Not to mention there are plenty of other ways to catch it or we wouldn't be worried about hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes. Ramping up production for billions of additional masks anytime in the near future and getting everyone to wear one properly is about as realistic as testing the whole country. IMO

    Reminds me of the guy in the grocery store early on. Mask, hat, gloves, the whole get up. walking around touching everything , grabbing food and putting it back,etc. Then his phone rings, reaches into his pocket and grabs the phone, touches the screen to answer pulls his mask down and right up to his face with the phone and the gloves still on
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    Ever wear one?
    No.. I would if I had one though! I actually have P95 masks, and, if I were going into a real hotspot, I'd wear it, but.. Kind of a little too "storm trooper" for me (it's for spraying solvent based paint.. Incidentally, one of the really strange things about that mask, you cannot smell ANYTHING through it. I also use it for spraying chemicals with a 2 stroke mistblower, and it's always so strange to me to be able to hear and feel a 2 stroke engine without the 2 stroke smell). If it gets really bad, yes, I'd wear it out, but I'm really afraid of the reaction people would have, it's pretty "scary looking". But, to your point, no, it's not exactly comfortable! In fact, it sucks. But if I were in NYC and had to go shopping or on the subway? Yes, I'd wear it and suffer though it for the absolute minimum amount of time that I had to in public with it on.

    For the most part I agree on the testing but it would help track down hot spots faster and could allow for more limited lockdowns.
    Agreed.

    but then again I think the mask thing in general is not very effective. The overconfidence they can generate is just as big a problem. Seems when I'm at the store that people think the mask now takes the place of not standing on top of each other
    It's effective if you use it correctly. Something in YOUR control. Like your example, someone taking a cell phone call?! Well, that's on him/her. Could it generate false confidence? Yes, it could, however, from the pictures I'm seeing in many areas, even hotspots, I'd take "false confidence" over what I'm seeing (which is just outright disregard). It's NOT perfect, doctors are still getting it even with N95's. But, as was said earlier, it's a dosage thing, one particle isn't enough, 10billion are more than enough. An N95 lowers the exposure, for sure, but if you're in an hospital all day with a lot of sick patients, it may not be enough. But, again, I agree with you, we need to do ALL of it, stay apart from one another in choke points like stores, wear masks, test more, track outbreaks. But, of all those things, only one is something YOU (and I) can do, on our own, to help ourselves. Mask up. I do try to impose some "space" in stores, and I will ask someone to back off in line if they are too close. If someone is coming at me in the store, I'll turn around. But there's only so much I can do without others agreeing to do it too (and many are/will not). Same with testing, yes, if we test everyone ever day, we'll be able to shut this thing down in a heartbeat. But that's like saying "if nobody leaves there house AT ALL for the next 14 days, it'll be over". Yes, that's true, but it's also dependant on OTHER people following the rules, not just you. The mask only depends on you (which is why I like it so much, it's something I can do for myself and my family to protect us). No, if I'm able to get some N95's, I'm still not getting on a plane, not going to NYC, and not going out shoe shopping. I'm going to wear it to the grocery store once every few weeks, to Lowes if I need to go and.. Well, that's basically it, those are the sum total of my "hotspot" interactions. I really don't need one, and I'd fully be on board if someone came out and said, "we're ramping up the N95's and we're sending them all to NYC for the next 3 weeks to try to get it under control up there". Makes sense to me, supported by the data, and indirectly, benefits me too because less infections is good for all of us.

    I just don't get the people standing on top of one another in the store in NORMAL times. Now? WTF is wrong with you people?! Why on earth would you want to get that close to me, I could have it too you know? And I certainly don't want to be that close to you! Guess this all comes down to what's your tolerance for "personal space". For me, I need a lot of it, I'm totally happy at 6-10ft apart from people I don't know, thank you very much.

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