4 ms·
Yes, but it is also true that the number of available tests is increasing rapidly, and also is partly in response to government demand. If the the available nu
by woodandsteel 7y ago
Yes, but it is also true that the number of available tests is increasing rapidly, and also is partly in response to government demand.
If the the available number increased to the level where everyone with symptoms could be tested, would you favor doing so? and do you think that governments should push til enough tests are available to do that?
- groby_b 7y agoLate reply, but yes to the former, with the caveat that it's contingent on sensitivity and specificity. (I.e. false negatives/positives) Probably yes to the latter, unless it takes away resources we need more urgently elsewhere. But really, what we need to do is depress the count of infected people to a point where it's even feasible to test everybody with symptoms. Even if we rolled out testing to a point where we can test 1M/day (I think it's 200K/day right now?), it'd take a year to test all of the US. If we're in flu-prevalence territory, that's only 19M, and so suddenly much more doable. And at that level, we need the ability to both test anybody with symptoms and to conduct random samplings of asymptomatic people, because without that, we couldn't lift shelter-in-place until we have a vaccine. That's... a tad long. So, more tests, plus suppression doing its job. And it'd be lovely if our government would push to get anything done, really. They've wasted 8 weeks by now, at least. Coordinated response is allowed to kick in any day, by my book.