4 ms·
One person in a nursing home of now 20 dies of respiratory complications matching pre-existing conditions. You can: - assume it was coronavirus, test the rema
by morelisp 7y ago
One person in a nursing home of now 20 dies of respiratory complications matching pre-existing conditions.
You can:
- assume it was coronavirus, test the remaining 20 people - cost: 20 tests
- or, test the dead person, then only test the remaining 20 people if that test comes back positive - cost: 1 test or 21 tests, expected cost 1 + 20 * % chance the person was infected tests.
Unless you believe there's a 95% chance they were infected, the tests are better spent elsewhere.
(This assumes you are also going to isolate them until the results are in regardless, which has further cost and dangers especially in high-risk groups. And that you are either already testing or not testing anyone outside the living group possibly exposed. Public health is a wicked problem.)