5 ms·

I agree with it being a positive development, but it is probably a story for any potential second waves. Don't think it can be scaled quickly enough to change

by dbrait 7y ago

I agree with it being a positive development, but it is probably a story for any potential second waves. Don't think it can be scaled quickly enough to change much in the current wave. It also doesn't solve many of the spontaneous human interactions that are hurt by this. A 13 min per person test that needs to be adminstered by somebody who knows what they are doing works fine in a factory. It probably is still too much friction for a restaurant, the subway, a stadium, kid's soccer practice, etc.

ZeKK14 7y ago
We can have testing stations everywhere, available to everybody, providing some kind of certificate. You would have to show this certificate when entering stadiums or restaurants to prove you're not infected. Still not perfect, but this could be a workaround.
- duncan-donuts 7y ago
  I have a lot of problems with this conceptually, but I think we should do something like this eventually. My biggest problem is my wife is sick, I’m not, I have a certificate that says I’m totally fine but I could now be infected, might be contaminating things, etc. What good is a certificate? We’d need to be tested almost constantly for it to mean anything.
  - ZeKK14 7y ago
    The goal would not to be 100% sure, only to reduce the spread to fall below R0 < 1 while keeping the economy running and people sane. And yes, you would have to be re-tested regularly.
jwlake 7y ago
I would open a bar in a minute with this device. :) It would have 6 ft spaced lines day and night. 10 drink minimum with test.
CaptArmchair 7y ago
Exactly. The problem with self testing is trust. If you get tested by an authority - a doctor - then there is only so much discussion to be had. Whereas if you are asked to test yourself in the morning, who's going to be able to verify your claimed outcome? Consider STD's and - in particular - HIV. Even with medical testing, the first basic lesson any teenager (should) get(s) is to use a condom if you don't know your partner. Moreover, it's a good thing that many legal systems (a) only grant doctors the ability to issue sick leave and (b) protect the rights of those who are issued sick leave. Labor laws being byzantine as they are, allowing employers to test their workers at their own discretion poses a wide range of prickly legal issues. The fact that South Korea or China (arguably) succeeded in curbing their epidemic happened because their public governance puts the collective above personal rights and people are totally fine with that because that's a deep part of the moral standard of their culture. Current mass quarantine exercises are painful in the short term, but if you can keep them up for significant time, it might be possible to safeguard liberties and protections that aren't self-evident. You could curtail those exercises and favor self testing in order to open up the economy quicker, but doing that in a meaningful way requires that we all are prepared to compromise on some of those protections and rights, with all the unintended societal consequences that might bring.
- tooltalk 7y ago
  > their public governance puts the collective above personal rights and people are totally fine with that because that's a deep part of the moral standard of their culture. I kind of disagree with that point. South Korea has succeeded in curbing the virus so far because, in large part, they are simply better prepared. To give a quick historical context, they suffered another (much smaller) coronavirus called MERS not too long ago (2015) and they ran into similar problems that many countries are now dealing with. So they spent the last 4-5 years improving their regulation (eg, quicker KFDA approval), logistics/supply chain (eg, testing kits development, distribution), and legal/public policy (eg, privacy and public disclosure) and preparing for the next virus outbreak. So, for instance, we hear a lot about their high-tech, big-data driven tracking system (using personal GPS, credit cards data) to identify hotspots/potential contacts and isolate further infections -- that didn't exist 5 years ago during the MERS outbreak because it was thought to be intrusive and violated individual rights. The intrusive search and diagnosis strategy employed today was born out of necessity; normally not permissible under their moral or cultural code. https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/south-korea-learned-its-successful-covid-19-strategy-from-a-previous-coronavirus-outbreak-mers/ https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/south-korea-learned-its-succ...

by dbrait 7y ago

ZeKK14 7y ago

We can have testing stations everywhere, available to everybody, providing some kind of certificate. You would have to show this certificate when entering stadiums or restaurants to prove you're not infected. Still not perfect, but this could be a workaround.

duncan-donuts 7y ago
I have a lot of problems with this conceptually, but I think we should do something like this eventually. My biggest problem is my wife is sick, I’m not, I have a certificate that says I’m totally fine but I could now be infected, might be contaminating things, etc. What good is a certificate? We’d need to be tested almost constantly for it to mean anything.
- ZeKK14 7y ago
  The goal would not to be 100% sure, only to reduce the spread to fall below R0 < 1 while keeping the economy running and people sane. And yes, you would have to be re-tested regularly.

jwlake 7y ago

I would open a bar in a minute with this device. :) It would have 6 ft spaced lines day and night. 10 drink minimum with test.

CaptArmchair 7y ago

Exactly. The problem with self testing is trust. If you get tested by an authority - a doctor - then there is only so much discussion to be had. Whereas if you are asked to test yourself in the morning, who's going to be able to verify your claimed outcome? Consider STD's and - in particular - HIV. Even with medical testing, the first basic lesson any teenager (should) get(s) is to use a condom if you don't know your partner. Moreover, it's a good thing that many legal systems (a) only grant doctors the ability to issue sick leave and (b) protect the rights of those who are issued sick leave. Labor laws being byzantine as they are, allowing employers to test their workers at their own discretion poses a wide range of prickly legal issues. The fact that South Korea or China (arguably) succeeded in curbing their epidemic happened because their public governance puts the collective above personal rights and people are totally fine with that because that's a deep part of the moral standard of their culture. Current mass quarantine exercises are painful in the short term, but if you can keep them up for significant time, it might be possible to safeguard liberties and protections that aren't self-evident. You could curtail those exercises and favor self testing in order to open up the economy quicker, but doing that in a meaningful way requires that we all are prepared to compromise on some of those protections and rights, with all the unintended societal consequences that might bring.

tooltalk 7y ago
> their public governance puts the collective above personal rights and people are totally fine with that because that's a deep part of the moral standard of their culture. I kind of disagree with that point. South Korea has succeeded in curbing the virus so far because, in large part, they are simply better prepared. To give a quick historical context, they suffered another (much smaller) coronavirus called MERS not too long ago (2015) and they ran into similar problems that many countries are now dealing with. So they spent the last 4-5 years improving their regulation (eg, quicker KFDA approval), logistics/supply chain (eg, testing kits development, distribution), and legal/public policy (eg, privacy and public disclosure) and preparing for the next virus outbreak. So, for instance, we hear a lot about their high-tech, big-data driven tracking system (using personal GPS, credit cards data) to identify hotspots/potential contacts and isolate further infections -- that didn't exist 5 years ago during the MERS outbreak because it was thought to be intrusive and violated individual rights. The intrusive search and diagnosis strategy employed today was born out of necessity; normally not permissible under their moral or cultural code. https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/south-korea-learned-its-successful-covid-19-strategy-from-a-previous-coronavirus-outbreak-mers/ https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/south-korea-learned-its-succ...