3 ms·
By that logic, you can justify literally anything: if it might have some theoretical impact on “transmission rate”, you do it because doing something makes peop
by irq11 6y ago
By that logic, you can justify literally anything: if it might have some theoretical impact on “transmission rate”, you do it because doing something makes people feel like they’re doing something.
- gamblor956 6y agoThat's ridiculous reasoning. We know that infected people can spread COVID19 without any deliberate action on their part through the simple, reflexive action of exhaling. This part is not in doubt. The virus has an R0 greater than 2 in uncontrolled circumstances, meaning that each infected person will likely infect at least 2 others. This is the lower bound; other analyses have placed the uncontrolled R0 for COVID19 as high as 6. Thus, identifying and quarantining as many of those who are infected as possible will reduce the transmission rate because there will be fewer opportunities for those infected people to (unwittingly) infect others. This part is not in doubt. It's basic physics and basic medicine.
- irq11 6y agoYou’re focusing on the “virus scary and contagious” part, and skipping the part where you show that the proposed method is effective at stopping it. As many others have noted now, if I can bring a test result taken days ago, I can easily have acquired the virus in the meantime. On the plane, for example. As you note, respiratory viruses are usually contagious, and there’s an incubation period where you probably won’t test positive or show symptoms.
- standardUser 6y agoI will stress again, the name of the game is keeping the transmission rate LOW, not bringing it down to zero. Do you think 6 feet prevents all droplet transmission? No, of course not, but it helps reduce the transmission rate. Do masks prevent all infection? Absolutely not, but it helps to reduce the transmission ate. If we can devise low impact ways to reduce the transmission rate (masks, chokepoint testing, remote temperate checks) then we can do away with the more onerous methods (closing down the entire global economy for example).
- irq11 6y agoI will stress again that if your only bar is ”seems like it might reduce transmission rate”, then you can justify literally anything. We have to do something (to reduce transmission)! This is something! Let’s do it!
- standardUser 6y agoYou may recall that we shut down the entire global economy because of this virus. So yeah, it's true, we can justify a whole hell of a lot in service of keeping the transmission rate low. And there's nothing theoretical about this. Regularly stopping infected individuals form boarding planes will reduce the transmission rate, not in theory, but in fact.
- irq11 6y agoYep, we’ve done all manner of unproven, dubiously effective measures at incredible cost, because “we have to do something!” That is not itself a justification for doing more of them.