4 ms·
There is a rapid cheap test for covid-19 infection. It consists of checking whether a person has cold/flu symptoms and/or a temperature over 37.5. This test ma
by wavegeek 6y ago
There is a rapid cheap test for covid-19 infection. It consists of checking whether a person has cold/flu symptoms and/or a temperature over 37.5.
This test may sound ridiculous but it is part of the reason why Taiwan has had hardly any deaths from the virus and yet did not have to have a lockdown.
In Taiwan, checks are made at entrance to work, school, transport, shops. Those who have symptoms as above are excluded. This, combined with other measures (below) has been enough to produce successful control of the disease.
Some numbers Country, deaths/million, GDP fall Q2/2020
Taiwan,0.3,-0.6
Australia,35,-7.0
Germany,158,-11.2
Sweden,167,-8.3
USA,767,-9.6
Belgium,1278,-14.5
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-health-economy https://ourworldindata.org/covid-health-economy
Measures Taiwan took
1. Close borders as hard as possible very early.
2. Strictly and competently managed mandatory quarantine of overseas arrivals.
3. Mandatory facemasks. Initially supplies were rationed until supplied caught up.
4. Health checks as above.
5. Competently managed contact tracing.
Some of this strategy may be difficult to duplicate in certain countries. See the steps with the word "competent" included.
Also the Taiwanese public appear to trust the government's competence and good intentions, something that does not seem to be true in some other countries.
- adanto6840 6y agoThe studies & data on "health checks" -- temperature checks, symptom screening, etc -- thus far shows that it is generally considered to not be very effective. Here are 3 studies I found quickly, but this line from [2] sums it up nicely: "... screening is resource intensive and its effectiveness is limited due to a high proportion of asymptomatic or pre‐symptomatic cases, resulting in low detection rates." [0] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7014668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7014668/ [1] - https://elifesciences.org/articles/55570 https://elifesciences.org/articles/55570 (includes bonus GH repo w/ data and methodology) [2] - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rmv.2192 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rmv.2192
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoLimited effectiveness is not the same as ineffective. Cloth masks are less effective than n95 which are less effective than paprs. So I should not wear any mask unless I can get a papr because they're not as effective?
- adanto6840 6y agoI don't disagree, though it does come down to cost-benefit. Masks are a no-brainer IMO; they're cheap & data generally leans towards them having some level of efficacy even at the lowest ends of the cost-spectrum (ie cloth coverings), and they appear to have rapidly-increasing efficacy as the cost-spectrum value rises (ie N95+, respirators, etc). I should have included the last sentence from that paragraph in the study, because it's pretty concise: "Therefore, careful consideration should be given to the cost‐benefit of implementing such measures." IMO it'd be impossible & fruitless to attempt to get even moderate numbers of businesses to do health & temperature screening, much less small businesses; it's just cost-prohibitive, and with the benefit being mediocre at best, there are likely better places to allocate resources.
- iszomer 6y agoThere are also checkpoints throughout the airport that monitors with thermal cameras. It's been that way for as long as I can remember whenever I travel there.
- neuronic 6y agoIt would be far more effective to include taste/smell checks. The loss of these senses is a far stronger predictor for COVID than a cough.
- morsch 6y agoYour deaths/million number for Sweden is way off, it's 624, not 167. Haven't checked the other numbers.