Covid-19

[JL25and3]

That is so telling.

Too much testing.

[Bub]

Re: Covid-19

Too much testing.

Right!

New York State’s curve looks like Italy’s. We test about 50,000 a day and the result is usually around 1% positive.

[JL25and3]

Re: Covid-19

Another public health official about to get fired by Trump:

The number of Americans who have been infected with the coronavirus is most likely about 10 times higher than the 2.3 million cases that have been reported, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

“We probably recognized about 10 percent of the outbreak,” Dr. Robert Redfield said on a call with reporters.

He added that between 5 percent and 8 percent of Americans have been infected to date.

The C.D.C. is basing those estimates on antibody test results from across the country.

From the Times.

[GordonGecko]

Re: Covid-19

Right!

New York State’s curve looks like Italy’s. We test about 50,000 a day and the result is usually around 1% positive.

Seems like they are testing way more than 50K now every day:
https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov...r=no&%3Atabs=n

[Bub]

Re: Covid-19

Seems like they are testing way more than 50K now every day:
https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov...r=no&%3Atabs=n

That's a great tool! Any idea if those tested all have symptoms? Testing random folks would be great if there was an easy way to do it.

[Texsahara]

Re: Covid-19

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/26/polit...utm_term=image

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said Friday that the White House coronavirus task force is "seriously considering" pool testing for Covid-19 and acknowledged to The Washington Post that the Trump administration's current testing strategy has proven inadequate.

The way "pool testing" works is by mixing together several samples together into a "batch," or pool, and then test the pooled sample with one diagnostic test. This way you can test a group of, for example, 25 people with one test rather than 25 separate diagnostic tests. If the test comes back negative, then you have eliminated 25 people with one test. If you get a positive result, you go back and test people individually.

[JL25and3]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/26/polit...utm_term=image

This way, a false negative is a false negative for 20 people at a time.

I get it, but it doesn’t seem like a plan that’s actually reasonable. It sounds like a desperate effort to make the most out of an inadequate program.

[YFIB]

Re: Covid-19

This way, a false negative is a false negative for 20 people at a time.

I get it, but it doesn’t seem like a plan that’s actually reasonable. It sounds like a desperate effort to make the most out of an inadequate program.

It seems fine if you are actually going to go back and test the group individually.

I just don't see how they get Trump to let them acknowledge that what they've been doing has been inadequate.

[Texsahara]

Re: Covid-19

This way, a false negative is a false negative for 20 people at a time.

I get it, but it doesn’t seem like a plan that’s actually reasonable. It sounds like a desperate effort to make the most out of an inadequate program.

I don't know. It's a pretty well-established procedure in blood banking so they know the methodology works and Birx says they could go from half a million tests per day to 5 million. There is still a shortage of regents and swabs so this would allow more testing of asymptomatic people. More a surveillance strategy. You could test large groups of people at job sites or schools. You wouldn't necessarily be using it in places where there are big outbreaks so not TX but CT or MA.

[YankeePride1967]

Re: Covid-19

With Trump’s idea less testing means less cases. Had I not seen a doctor, maybe I wouldn’t have needed a kidney transplant. Damn it where was Trump when I needed him!

[Archer1979]

Re: Covid-19

With Trump’s idea less testing means less cases. Had I not seen a doctor, maybe I wouldn’t have needed a kidney transplant. Damn it where was Trump when I needed him!

Banging Playmates and forcing them to sign NDAs.

[JL25and3]

With Trump’s idea less testing means less cases. Had I not seen a doctor, maybe I wouldn’t have needed a kidney transplant. Damn it where was Trump when I needed him!

Just think how great your health would be if your foot hadn’t been run over!

[YankeePride1967]

Re: Covid-19

Just think how great your health would be if your foot hadn’t been run over!

I may never see another doctor!

[theDurk]

Re: Covid-19

This way, a false negative is a false negative for 20 people at a time.

I get it, but it doesn’t seem like a plan that’s actually reasonable. It sounds like a desperate effort to make the most out of an inadequate program.

That's a little glib and maybe just wrong. If they actually were negative, the result is accurate. If one person is positive, he/she is presumably is as likely to be a false negative on an individual test as a pool test. My son just did the CVS drive-thru self-swab test after a possible exposure at work, and was told his negative carried a false risk of 19 per cent. If multiple people are positive, the fact that the result was non-reactive to the sample from positive Individual A does not mean the test will not respond to the sample from positive individual B. I don't believe your assertion (if I read you correctly) that there is any increase in overall false negatives.

I think there is real potential for what you might call maintenance testing in groups at high risk, such as meat plant workers or nursing home workers, or military or other units in close proximity such as shipmates, barracks-mates. or sports teammates. This would allow frequent testing of groups on an ongoing basis (hopefully of the less-invasive types of tests) without expending huge amounts of resources, and allow a greater chance of catching a 'fresh' positive before it propagates through the group.

Of course, I'm not a real doctor.

[GordonGecko]

Re: Covid-19

The way "pool testing" works is by mixing together several samples together into a "batch," or pool, and then test the pooled sample with one diagnostic test. This way you can test a group of, for example, 25 people with one test rather than 25 separate diagnostic tests. If the test comes back negative, then you have eliminated 25 people with one test. If you get a positive result, you go back and test people individually.

This way, a false negative is a false negative for 20 people at a time.

I get it, but it doesn’t seem like a plan that’s actually reasonable. It sounds like a desperate effort to make the most out of an inadequate program.

It's like using leverage on the stock market. You take what powder you have and turbocharge it by multiples. Your 50,000 per day testing capability becomes 1,250,000. Any group of 25 that tests positive takes a second individual test and isolates while they wait for the results