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Agreed. In the previous paragraph to that quote: > As he sees it, handing over health information is a relatively small price to pay if it means halting the sp

Agreed. In the previous paragraph to that quote: > As he sees it, handing over health information is a relatively small price to pay if it means halting the spread of a virus that has ravaged the nation. That "if" is doing a lot of work. Does BioButton actually help? Does it help even after mass vaccinations? If it doesn't help, then why pay any price, no matter how small? Or, just after what you quoted: > He says the wearable technology seemed the least invasive way to catch symptoms early and give students tools to know if they might have early signs of, or potential exposure to, Covid-19. How many false positives will it give? If there are 100 false positives to one true positive, then the signal will be drowned out in the noise.

visarga 5y ago
> How many false positives will it give? If there are 100 false positives to one true positive, then the signal will be drowned out in the noise. On the other hand the consequences of a false positive are much smaller than those of a false negative. Inconvenience vs serious health problems or death.
- eesmith 5y ago
  Absolutely this requires a cost-benefits analysis! So, what is the false positive rate? I pulled the 100-to-1 out of my ass. Maybe it's 10K-to-1 or only 5-to-1. Maybe the false negative rate is 19-to-1, which would also make it rather useless. Dunno. Does the school know? Is that information public? Sure would be nice to have, yes? What does "inconvenience" mean? I think you're talking about inconvenience for the students. If so, I want you to consider what "inconvenience" means for the school administration. They have many policies they could enforce. They could have mandatory campus-wide testing every three days, and if someone tests positive then the campus is closed until tests are negative for three weeks, and during that time all on-campus residents are in quarantine, and classes switch to 100% remote teaching. Inconvenient, yes? But if the question is simply "Inconvenience vs serious health problems or death" then surely this inconvenience they could put up with, yes? It'll surely be more effective than this BioButton! Instead, it sounds like the administration wants something which is more convenient and cheaper to their budget. If so, shouldn't they demonstrate that this convenience isn't some sort of high-tech smoke&mirrors to avoid paying for something that is actually effective?
- elliekelly 5y ago
  I think it depends. I have lupus so I’ve got a low grade fever pretty frequently even though for the most part I’m perfectly fine. I’m certainly not contagious. In the early days of the pandemic I was turned away once — in front of everyone! The judgment I felt from the others in line was awful. Like I’d done something wrong for being unable to control sometime completely beyond my control. The anxiety from that one experience was enough to keep me home unless I had absolutely no choice but to go somewhere. It was certainly more than just an “inconvenience” to me and my family and no one around me was ever at risk of death because I had been diligent in masking and social distancing from the beginning.
  - hobs 5y ago
    And while your experience was poor the practice of turning away those with a fever is a sane best practice. It happened one time in am embarrassing manner, and that sucks, but when you put your grief next to the millions of people that died we can probably just continue to do this thing and deal with the embarrassing outcomes as they crop up.
    - ameister14 5y ago
      >It happened one time in am embarrassing manner, and that sucks, but when you put your grief next to the millions of people that died we can probably just continue to do this thing and deal with the embarrassing outcomes as they crop up. That's only valid if the millions of people that died would not have died had people been turned away with fevers. From my understanding that is not the case.
    - elliekelly 5y ago
      Yes, for you the embarrassing outcome is a one-off. But for me (and others) it was a distinct possibility every single time I left the house. Do you see the difference?
      - hobs 5y ago
        There's no difference except in my miscommunication - I used the term once because you described it as a single event, I did not mean to imply that it could not happen again or wasnt happening often and inopportunely, but instead to comment on the contrast between a measured event that sucks and millions of measured events that suck way more.

visarga 5y ago

> How many false positives will it give? If there are 100 false positives to one true positive, then the signal will be drowned out in the noise. On the other hand the consequences of a false positive are much smaller than those of a false negative. Inconvenience vs serious health problems or death.

eesmith 5y ago
Absolutely this requires a cost-benefits analysis! So, what is the false positive rate? I pulled the 100-to-1 out of my ass. Maybe it's 10K-to-1 or only 5-to-1. Maybe the false negative rate is 19-to-1, which would also make it rather useless. Dunno. Does the school know? Is that information public? Sure would be nice to have, yes? What does "inconvenience" mean? I think you're talking about inconvenience for the students. If so, I want you to consider what "inconvenience" means for the school administration. They have many policies they could enforce. They could have mandatory campus-wide testing every three days, and if someone tests positive then the campus is closed until tests are negative for three weeks, and during that time all on-campus residents are in quarantine, and classes switch to 100% remote teaching. Inconvenient, yes? But if the question is simply "Inconvenience vs serious health problems or death" then surely this inconvenience they could put up with, yes? It'll surely be more effective than this BioButton! Instead, it sounds like the administration wants something which is more convenient and cheaper to their budget. If so, shouldn't they demonstrate that this convenience isn't some sort of high-tech smoke&mirrors to avoid paying for something that is actually effective?
elliekelly 5y ago
I think it depends. I have lupus so I’ve got a low grade fever pretty frequently even though for the most part I’m perfectly fine. I’m certainly not contagious. In the early days of the pandemic I was turned away once — in front of everyone! The judgment I felt from the others in line was awful. Like I’d done something wrong for being unable to control sometime completely beyond my control. The anxiety from that one experience was enough to keep me home unless I had absolutely no choice but to go somewhere. It was certainly more than just an “inconvenience” to me and my family and no one around me was ever at risk of death because I had been diligent in masking and social distancing from the beginning.
- hobs 5y ago
  And while your experience was poor the practice of turning away those with a fever is a sane best practice. It happened one time in am embarrassing manner, and that sucks, but when you put your grief next to the millions of people that died we can probably just continue to do this thing and deal with the embarrassing outcomes as they crop up.
  - ameister14 5y ago
    >It happened one time in am embarrassing manner, and that sucks, but when you put your grief next to the millions of people that died we can probably just continue to do this thing and deal with the embarrassing outcomes as they crop up. That's only valid if the millions of people that died would not have died had people been turned away with fevers. From my understanding that is not the case.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    Yes, for you the embarrassing outcome is a one-off. But for me (and others) it was a distinct possibility every single time I left the house. Do you see the difference?
    - hobs 5y ago
      There's no difference except in my miscommunication - I used the term once because you described it as a single event, I did not mean to imply that it could not happen again or wasnt happening often and inopportunely, but instead to comment on the contrast between a measured event that sucks and millions of measured events that suck way more.