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In this plan people would get tested again on the next day and the day after that and the day after that. If you don't catch them on the very first day they ha
by pmoriarty 6y ago
In this plan people would get tested again on the next day and the day after that and the day after that.
If you don't catch them on the very first day they have enough virus in their body to be above the test threshold, then you'll probably catch them in the next day or two anyway. Also, positive results can be verified with more reliable tests, if you want... or you could just retest with the same test some more, with every consistent result raising one's confidence in the test.
The TWiV episode goes in to detail about how if the goal is reducing the spread of the virus on a population level, then we only really care about a narrow window of infectivity, not about when people are infected but don't yet have enough virus to infect others. The cheap, quick tests they're talking about are good enough for this purpose.
- wittyreference 6y agoThey're reasonably quick. They are not cheap. $35 a pop or so. For our local elementary school, that would run ~115K a week.
- pmoriarty 6y agoThe tests mentioned in the TWiV episode I'm talking about cost only $1 per test.
- wittyreference 6y agoI suspect that’s marginal cost of production, not actual price. I’m one of the folks in charge of this exact issue for the healthcare chain I work for; we can negotiate volume discounts, but nothing that brings us from $35 to $1.