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Thread: Testing?

  1. #21
    Seasoned Camper That 1 Ron's Avatar
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    The governor for the state of NM is now recommending that everyone that is still going to work, should get tested for COVID-19, especially essential employees- medical workers, utility workers (that would include me) and other essential employees working. I feel good now so I don't know if I'll take her up on that offer.

    What I'm more interested in is the anti-body tests. I was pretty sick throughout February with many of the symptoms but wasn't a candidate to get tested (I don't think NM even had it's first reported case yet). My youngest was also very sick, had pretty much all the symptoms and almost had to be hospitalized with pneumonia conditions. My wife and my oldest barely had a cough though. A few of my relatives and quite a few of my coworkers were also sick throughout Feb. into March. I've since learned that a coworker had gone a cruise in mid to late January and his entire family became ill when they returned.

    So, did we have it? Who knows but that's more of what I'm interested in now.
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  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by That 1 Ron View Post
    So, did we have it? Who knows but that's more of what I'm interested in now.
    And while I agree, I'd be interested (kind of am, I was pretty sick too right around the holidays) too, how is the knowledge you had it going to in any way inform your decisions moving forward? We have no idea if "I had it" confers 100%, 50%, or 0% immunity to getting it again. Most likely, it confers some immunity for some period of time, but, as the virus mutates, that immunity will likely become less and less effective at preventing reinfection.

    I'd like to know too, but me knowing "I had it" makes exactly 0 people safer or less likely to get it. "I have it now" would be marginally better, I'd know, for sure, not to go around other people, but, by the time I knew that, how many others would I have already infected (if I was operating normally, flying on planes, etc)? I just don't see this great panacea in testing other than to give the data scientists something to play with that may help them inform decisions about what/where is "somewhat safe" and "not safe at all". Useful information? I suppose. But we know, without a shadow of doubt, that NYC is "NOT SAFE" and people are still doing a lot of things very, very likely to spread it. So, yeah, I guess if I knew my area was experiencing a flare up, I could even more stridently social distance.

    But I'd rather have masks.

  3. #23
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    I have a mask, and wear it when I go out every 2-3 weeks for a food run. Since it is such an undertaking cleaning myself, clothes, phone, all purchased groceries, etc I minimize trips by hitting 2-4 stores per day out. That usually is a few hours. Most of which is out of my car so I wear my mask. It is a good quality mask (RZ masks) and I guess as comfortable as they can be, but horribly UNCOMFORTABLE after about 30-60 minutes. Just reality. I am pretty sure I am wearing it correctly but still, it is not an air tight seal around my face - which means the potential for infected air to come in is there as well as infected air going out if I have COVID. People need to also understand that if you have the disease, and wear a mask with a valve to make breathing easier - that mask is doing zero to reduce your spread. Every time I get back in my car I use hand sanitizer to minimize potential spread. Phone is probably the biggest liability as it is used both in my car as well as in the store (shopping list is on it). It gets wiped down when I get home. My car is treated as a "dirty place" right now.

    We stage all food into a storage room for a couple weeks and everything is wiped down that needs to be and hands are washed after handling any food from its packaging. Packages/deliveries are all quarantined for a week+ and hands are washed after handling of all mail and packages. My wife is a full blown germophobe, she lets it run her life. Despite all of the above, and her extremely strict protocols - she just got to spend the last 2 weeks isolated in the guest bedroom/suite because she was showing symptoms (chest pain, difficulty breathing, GI issues, hot flashes). Her last outing was right when masks were becoming more of a thing (early April) and at that time she did not have an N95, just a cloth one her mom had made. We assume that is when she got exposed. Generally speaking, people are not doing a great job of being safe in public. My neighbors have had visitors pretty much constantly over the last 6 weeks with their kids playing with other kids and parents socializing. People are NOT taking this seriously enough to prevent it from being around for a LONG time.

    Now for the most fun part of all of this, my wife was able to get a test as soon as she started showing symptoms and called her doctor (which honestly surprised us). It was a drive through nasal swab affair. She tested negative. The tests have a 30% false negative rate. This means that before she even had the test, the doctor had already said regardless of the result, you should quarantine until symptoms clear. She said the same again after getting the negative result back. My mom knows someone who tested negative twice before finally getting a diagnosis on their 3rd test.

    As an engineer by degree and trade, I am completely astounded that the standard accepted tests being used are so unreliable. 50% would be flip a coin on if the test is right or not. 30% false negative means it is not much better than flipping a coin. We NEED better testing (both better quality and higher volume) but the only way that the spread of this gets stopped is if everyone practices the right discipline in public. The people protesting that they need a haircut are idiots in my opinion and going to cause more harm than good with regard to the disease. I am not an economist and will not try to comment on the short and long term impacts economically this will take - that being said, the current relief efforts seem to have been largely misdirected and have fallen painfully short where they are needed most.

    Sorry, just needed to rant some as this became very real and close to home for me recently (just came off of being a single parent of a 2 year old for 2 weeks haha - RESPECT for all the stay-at-home moms out there!)
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  4. #24
    Seasoned Camper That 1 Ron's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Overtaxed View Post
    And while I agree, I'd be interested (kind of am, I was pretty sick too right around the holidays) too, how is the knowledge you had it going to in any way inform your decisions moving forward? We have no idea if "I had it" confers 100%, 50%, or 0% immunity to getting it again. Most likely, it confers some immunity for some period of time, but, as the virus mutates, that immunity will likely become less and less effective at preventing reinfection.

    I'd like to know too, but me knowing "I had it" makes exactly 0 people safer or less likely to get it. "I have it now" would be marginally better, I'd know, for sure, not to go around other people, but, by the time I knew that, how many others would I have already infected (if I was operating normally, flying on planes, etc)? I just don't see this great panacea in testing other than to give the data scientists something to play with that may help them inform decisions about what/where is "somewhat safe" and "not safe at all". Useful information? I suppose. But we know, without a shadow of doubt, that NYC is "NOT SAFE" and people are still doing a lot of things very, very likely to spread it. So, yeah, I guess if I knew my area was experiencing a flare up, I could even more stridently social distance.

    But I'd rather have masks.
    My thought is, *IF* it was confirmed that I had it, hopefully that could help out research or even donate plasma or whatever to hopefully help someone else out. In my opinion, there would be at least some immunity created from having the virus and beating it. It would offer me a small piece of mind in a way I guess. I would ( and still will continue regardless) to social distance, wear my PPE when out in public, wipe everything from the outside down before it comes into my house, etc.
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  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by That 1 Ron View Post
    My thought is, *IF* it was confirmed that I had it, hopefully that could help out research or even donate plasma or whatever to hopefully help someone else out. In my opinion, there would be at least some immunity created from having the virus and beating it. It would offer me a small piece of mind in a way I guess. I would ( and still will continue regardless) to social distance, wear my PPE when out in public, wipe everything from the outside down before it comes into my house, etc.
    A couple of things

    1- I just went to Home Depot in Bradenton Fl, to exchange 3ea - 5 gallon bottles of water. I wanted to order online and do curbside pickup but that option wasn’t available for bottle exchange so I had to go into the store. I was shocked how busy it was and less than 20% of customers were wearing marks. What a bunch of morons.

    2- Germany infection rate increased 300% today after relaxing stay at home policy.

    3- Amazon Prime now has marks and hand sanitizer in stock for ordering at reasonable costs.

    4- I was also sick for 10 weeks with a respiratory illness that I caught from a friend. He also was sick for at least 2 moths with the same symptoms. He recently paid $150 for a Covid-19 test and an antibody test and results were negative for both.
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  6. #26
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    Rapid COVID test might miss 50% of positives:
    https://www.marketwatch.com/articles...=mw_latestnews

    I continue to believe, this is a fools errand. I watched Cuomo's presentation today, one of the things they do is break down infection stats into the "first responders" grouping. Those who are exposed to COVID constantly, doctors/nurses/etc (who, let me just say, THANK YOU). Well, not all that surprising, but the rate of infection for first responders is LOWER than that for the general public. That tells you one thing, LOUD and clear, masks work. And let's just stop "it's to protect others", and get honest here, a doctor in a middle of an ER filled with COVID patients isn't wearing it to protect those who already have it from getting it! Come on now, we all (well, most of us) know what the real answer is, N95's are really, really effective against this virus and even if you're in a "hot zone" of people with many infected, the mask provides relatively good (not complete, but very good) protection.

    And then, sadly, the discussion went back to using AI to do contact tracing and "more testing". MAKE MORE MASKS. That's what we need, not some made up "red/yellow/green" indicators on who can open and when based on.. Well, based on numbers that many we have no confidence in at all. Masks, masks, masks. When I get some N95's in supply, I'll be going out again much more frequently. Until, then, contact trace and back test the "big data" all you want, makes no difference to me because none of that protects me in any appreciable way.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Overtaxed View Post

    And then, sadly, the discussion went back to using AI to do contact tracing and "more testing". MAKE MORE MASKS. That's what we need,.
    IMO We aren't going to see a steady supply of N95's for months at best, they cant even get toilet paper back on the shelves consistently. Everyone who can make one is making them as fast as possible. Its almost a license to print money. EVERYONE in the WORLD is buying everyone they can get there hands on and paying top dollar. The supply chain was set up for just enough as needed and they do expire. Every hospital needs exponentially more than they normally used. And now the general public trying to buy them also.

    They're already talking about there will be shortage of the glass vials needed for the vaccine and they wont be needed for months. The excess capacity for these specialized items doesn't exist. Just in time inventory at its finest!
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  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKellerJr View Post
    IMO We aren't going to see a steady supply of N95's for months at best, they cant even get toilet paper back on the shelves consistently. Everyone who can make one is making them as fast as possible. Its almost a license to print money. EVERYONE in the WORLD is buying everyone they can get there hands on and paying top dollar. The supply chain was set up for just enough as needed and they do expire. Every hospital needs exponentially more than they normally used. And now the general public trying to buy them also.

    They're already talking about there will be shortage of the glass vials needed for the vaccine and they wont be needed for months. The excess capacity for these specialized items doesn't exist. Just in time inventory at its finest!
    Oh, I get it, and I am sure the demand is crazy and impossible to fulfill right now. But if we're going to hang our hopes somewhere, instead of a rapid test that's highly accurate and very sensitive (getting people to test positive as soon as they are infected/contagious) that we're not even sure we can ever make, or a vaccine that we're not sure we can ever make, I'd like to see a focus here. We know the masks work, we know we can't make enough of them yet, but there's no technical hurdle to ramping up production, just a scale issue. Scale we can do with some level of certainty, so; I'd just feel like we were making progress if instead of "We can test 3K people per day now" the updates said "We can make 800K masks per day now". That's the "magic bullet" far more than testing, back tracing contacts, AI/ML, or all the other stuff that's being thrown around as ways to "fix" this.

    Get me an N95 mask a day and I'll go back in public relatively without fear (when necessary of course). Until then, no thanks; no matter how much testing/tracing they do, we can't even conceive of the scale necessary (or tech) to do it well. I'd rather focus on what we know does work, and what we know we CAN do (ramp manufacturing) rather than pin my hopes on some data scientists and AI.

  9. #29
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    Good article that kind of echos my earlier concerns about "testing" as the magic bullet (or really a bullet at all):

    https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/...-tracing-plan/

  10. #30
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    More questions as to test accuracy.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...ctrum-n1214981

    When is someone going to say "this is silly/stupid" and start focusing on what we actually know works to stop this virus. Every person I see, swab in hand testing away, all I can think, "that person could be making N95 masks". Same with "contact tracers" and "AI engineers" and everyone else who's trying to kill this virus with exabytes of data. Are viruses killed by data? You would think they are from how we're acting!

    You will never be able to get enough tests, and, if by some miracle, you did, you need close to 100% accuracy from time of infection forward to really get a handle on it. My wife coughs on me as I leave for work, I get my daily swab before I'm allowed out of my car into the office and come up negative, but I'm covered in COVID and, by the end of the day, actively spreading it around the office. It's "virus theater", similar to "security theater" at the TSA checkpoint.

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