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What Is the point of increased testing now that it is so widespread in the community? The message needs to be social distancing even if you are not sick and if

What Is the point of increased testing now that it is so widespread in the community? The message needs to be social distancing even if you are not sick and if you are sick just assume it is coronavirus and self quarantine.

robbiep 7y ago
The point of increased testing is to identify cases, know the true denominator, impose isolation and allow for contact tracing, all to reduce R0
- peteradio 7y ago
  Isn't it too late? We seem to have cases spread thoroughly across all states.
  - DavidSJ 7y ago
    If you can trace the cases faster than they spread, then it’s not too late.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    No, it is not too late. The number of likely cases is still low enough to make contact tracing worthwhile to slow the spread.
    - peteradio 7y ago
      Ok, I was under the mistaken impression that we likely have a lot of cases, just under reported due to lack of tests. Perhaps we really only have ~5000, I had thought it was >100000.
      - Maro 7y ago
        There's various factors that contribute to underreporting: - not enough testing / 80% of people have mild/no symptoms - cases reported today were contracted ~5 days ago, so there's always roughly a doubling in the pipeline Right now the official case number is ~3k for the US. Focusing too much on the number doesn't help (it will keep going up for a while), what matters is doing things which will stop the spread.
    - robbiep 7y ago
      It’s like that walkthrough of the Chernobyl meltdown from the miniseries. Except it could work. If we insert the control rods now and scram the reactor then we could avoid societal breakdown when hospitals overflow and make the difference between a 3-4% death rate (Italy/Wuhan) and 0.7-0.9 (south Korea/Beijing) I’m on the frontlines of this one. I’m going to be deciding who gets care and who doesn’t shortly. I hope we can act sensibly and quickly to limit the damage and somehow avoid the worst case scenarios

robbiep 7y ago

The point of increased testing is to identify cases, know the true denominator, impose isolation and allow for contact tracing, all to reduce R0

peteradio 7y ago
Isn't it too late? We seem to have cases spread thoroughly across all states.
- DavidSJ 7y ago
  If you can trace the cases faster than they spread, then it’s not too late.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  No, it is not too late. The number of likely cases is still low enough to make contact tracing worthwhile to slow the spread.
  - peteradio 7y ago
    Ok, I was under the mistaken impression that we likely have a lot of cases, just under reported due to lack of tests. Perhaps we really only have ~5000, I had thought it was >100000.
    - Maro 7y ago
      There's various factors that contribute to underreporting: - not enough testing / 80% of people have mild/no symptoms - cases reported today were contracted ~5 days ago, so there's always roughly a doubling in the pipeline Right now the official case number is ~3k for the US. Focusing too much on the number doesn't help (it will keep going up for a while), what matters is doing things which will stop the spread.
  - robbiep 7y ago
    It’s like that walkthrough of the Chernobyl meltdown from the miniseries. Except it could work. If we insert the control rods now and scram the reactor then we could avoid societal breakdown when hospitals overflow and make the difference between a 3-4% death rate (Italy/Wuhan) and 0.7-0.9 (south Korea/Beijing) I’m on the frontlines of this one. I’m going to be deciding who gets care and who doesn’t shortly. I hope we can act sensibly and quickly to limit the damage and somehow avoid the worst case scenarios