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Point taken about Typhoid Mary. I should have said never before have we had so much information about asymptomatic disease transmission to see / worry about. A

by habosa 5y ago

Point taken about Typhoid Mary. I should have said never before have we had so much information about asymptomatic disease transmission to see / worry about. As for the testing ... I still do think Covid is extremely unique here. The US has given over 500M tests (~1.5/person) and the UK has given over 250M tests (~4/person) in less than two years. Many employers and schools are scaling up plans to do one or more tests per week per person. Sure maybe we haven't caught up to the total TB tests given across all time yet, but the rate of testing for this disease is far greater than anything that preceded it and looks like it will stay that way.

Breza 5y ago
Speaking from the United States, if we had rolled out a more robust testing scheme at the outset, we could have saved lives and accelerated reopening. President Trump publicly ridiculed widespread testing. My local school district is going to randomly test up to 20% of students every week. That's what it takes to control a pandemic. If people could have rolled out that level of testing during past pandemics, I'd like to think they would have.
justin66 5y ago
It's an interesting question of how to qualify your words when you talk about how widespread the tests are. I'm sure fewer than half the people I know have had COVID tests (versus tests everyone gets), which makes the tests per person metric potentially a little deceptive. I think it's a fair point that the possibility of constant testing tied to access to employment or entertainment could change our culture. > I should have said never before have we had so much information about asymptomatic disease transmission to see / worry about. I think this is much less of a problem than you make it out to be. Having a lot of information, and having the information gradually improve in quality, is a good thing. The media's inundation of people with the information and the insanely stupid public dialogue surrounding it all is... less good. Nevertheless, to the original point, I think all the analogies a person could draw between today and the dynamics of the AIDS epidemic and those years of uncertainty, discrimination and death make what's happening today seem less psychologically traumatic by comparison. Maybe it's less clear because we were already dealing with Very Stupid Times before COVID 19 came along.
- habosa 5y ago
  Totally agree. Having objective and open data sets on anything is great. Having daily headlines recoloring that same data is less great.

by habosa 5y ago

Breza 5y ago

Speaking from the United States, if we had rolled out a more robust testing scheme at the outset, we could have saved lives and accelerated reopening. President Trump publicly ridiculed widespread testing. My local school district is going to randomly test up to 20% of students every week. That's what it takes to control a pandemic. If people could have rolled out that level of testing during past pandemics, I'd like to think they would have.

justin66 5y ago

It's an interesting question of how to qualify your words when you talk about how widespread the tests are. I'm sure fewer than half the people I know have had COVID tests (versus tests everyone gets), which makes the tests per person metric potentially a little deceptive. I think it's a fair point that the possibility of constant testing tied to access to employment or entertainment could change our culture. > I should have said never before have we had so much information about asymptomatic disease transmission to see / worry about. I think this is much less of a problem than you make it out to be. Having a lot of information, and having the information gradually improve in quality, is a good thing. The media's inundation of people with the information and the insanely stupid public dialogue surrounding it all is... less good. Nevertheless, to the original point, I think all the analogies a person could draw between today and the dynamics of the AIDS epidemic and those years of uncertainty, discrimination and death make what's happening today seem less psychologically traumatic by comparison. Maybe it's less clear because we were already dealing with Very Stupid Times before COVID 19 came along.

habosa 5y ago
Totally agree. Having objective and open data sets on anything is great. Having daily headlines recoloring that same data is less great.