6 ms·

From what I read in this article and other sources, performing more tests seems to be a very promising approach to get this pandemic under control. The number

From what I read in this article and other sources, performing more tests seems to be a very promising approach to get this pandemic under control. The number of positive tests and death rates are published every day on all channels. I wish the number of performed tests would be also published daily. What gets measured gets managed. I wonder what limits the number of tests that can be performed. How much would it cost to ramp up testing capabilities so that every person with symptoms can be tested? How much to increase it to a level that everyone can be tested?

bamboozled 7y ago
Which is scary because Japan seems to have had the virus for a long time and is hardly testing at all. Really makes me wonder how the Olympics will or won't look.
- Frost1x 7y ago
  "We're virus free! Our strategy of extensively not testing has eliminated cases of the disease! Come to the 2020 Olympics, stay long, and please spend money here."
  - bamboozled 7y ago
    It’s a joke and everyone in Japan knows it too. The sooner they cancel or postpone and get on with solutions, the better.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Not cancelling or postponing the Olympics is massively irresponsible. That said, those who would still choose to attend are beyond help and a risk to their communities.
Amygaz 7y ago
It's not a question of cost at this point. It's a question of availability of reagents and consumables, materials to make those, and time it takes to ramp up. The supply chain is like a supertanker. At first we didn't have enough test, but that ramped up quickly, then we didn't have enough RNA extraction reagent, now we don't have enough swabs, and soon is the collection media that will be missing. There has been a call for more protective equipement. But as the situation gets worst, beds space, ventilator, and then staff are going to be the bottleneck. If you google you'll find stories of people helping their local hospital by 3D printing parts for for respirators, and swabs. There's nothing cost effective about that, it's not fast, but it gets the job done. If you were to scale that, you would be competing for the same materials than manufacturers using injection molding or plastic dipping are.
- ksrm 7y ago
  > At first we didn't have enough test, but that ramped up quickly, then we didn't have enough RNA extraction reagent, now we don't have enough swabs, and soon is the collection media that will be missing. Where are you getting this information from?
  - icegreentea2 7y ago
    For RNA extraction: https://cen.acs.org/analytical-chemistry/diagnostics/Shortage-RNA-extraction-kits-hampers/98/web/2020/03 https://cen.acs.org/analytical-chemistry/diagnostics/Shortag... for an example. For swabs - here's an example in action up in Ontario Canada: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/ontario-limits-who-can-be-tested-for-covid-19-due-to-demand-for-nasal-swabs-1.4853260 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/ontario-limits-who... No one is out trying to actively hide this information, but its spread does seem a little uneven. I also don't want this to be fearmongering. Capacity and supply will grow (hopefully fast enough). Alternative solutions will be validated. We will keep bumping into problems, and we'll keep solving them (cause we'll need to).
- tonetheman 7y ago
  We do not have tests. https://covidtracking.com/data/ https://covidtracking.com/data/ We have tested 150K people. We have 327M people in the US, we have tested 0.00046% of the population. We do not have tests.
  - mjewkes 7y ago
    0.046% You didn’t multiply by 100 to change from per unit to per cent. Still bad though.
    - tonetheman 7y ago
      awwwww man ... i suck at math. thanks!
  - DennisP 7y ago
snewman 7y ago
This site shows the number of tests performed in each state in the US: https://covidtracking.com/data/ https://covidtracking.com/data/
- supportlocal4h 7y ago
  That site demonstrates the erratic nature of current data. For instance, their source data for Nevada is https://app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrIjoiMjA2ZThiOWUtM2FlNS00MGY5LWFmYjUtNmQwNTQ3Nzg5N2I2IiwidCI6ImU0YTM0MGU2LWI4OWUtNGU2OC04ZWFhLTE1NDRkMjcwMzk4MCJ9 https://app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrIjoiMjA2ZThiOWUtM2FlNS0... At the moment of this comment that data says that ~2500 tests have been performed and ~2700 people have been tested. Perhaps those numbers were transposed. Maybe there is a simple, explainable mistake. But all the numbers everywhere are so full of errors, it makes casual statistical analysis just a fancy form of home entertainment at the moment.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
I think testing mostly matters to prove to people this is real, but tests don't actually stop the disease. They aren't a cure. I don't know how to get there from here, but I would like to see a great deal more focus on best practices and cultural change. That's how this pandemic will be stopped and prevented from recurring. Tests will only elucidate how bad it is, but aren't actual treatment. Stop touching your face. Stop touching everything. Stop shaking hands. Maybe adopt bowing instead as a respectful greeting. Wash your hands. Be more supportive of remote work. Design more services that help make flexible remote work a good thing for workers. (I like the Textbroker model. I've tried to promote that previously. No one cared or thought it mattered. Now, maybe people will pay attention.) Light one small candle rather than curse the dark. Focus on promoting solutions. We don't do enough of that.
- mynegation 7y ago
  I agree with you on almost all points, but testing does help to stop the disease. They are not a cure but an ability to test infected and recovered people en masse would help immensely to (a) isolate contagious people as soon as possible (b) confirm that the virus is cleared and the person can go back to the productive work with at least some assurance of immunity.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Let me try to put that another way: Tests are information. I think we have enough information to try to err on the side of "Let's just assume everyone is a danger. Let's just globally reduce our cavalier, casual exposure to germs as a matter of course." To me, it's crazy to insist we need to keep testing and we need to know who has it to protect people. Social distancing and good hygiene are effective whether the person has been identified or not. I wish we would just go with that and stop acting like "a return to normal" is the goal and just around the corner for most people, if only we can identify the parties guilty of being infected and Target them. It kind of doesn't matter. Just stop touching your face, among other things.
    - mynegation 7y ago
mynegation 7y ago
Ontario publishes this statistic and updates it twice daily [1]. It was just under 2% but started to creep up. To understand the numbers better it helps to know that currently there is about a 6 day wait on the test results. Until very recently criteria for testing were very stringent (2+ symptoms, recent travel), and even then only 2% were found to have it, which - in my understanding - disqualifies the idea that virus was already around for a while. [1] https://www.ontario.ca/page/2019-novel-coronavirus https://www.ontario.ca/page/2019-novel-coronavirus

bamboozled 7y ago

Which is scary because Japan seems to have had the virus for a long time and is hardly testing at all. Really makes me wonder how the Olympics will or won't look.

Frost1x 7y ago
"We're virus free! Our strategy of extensively not testing has eliminated cases of the disease! Come to the 2020 Olympics, stay long, and please spend money here."
- bamboozled 7y ago
  It’s a joke and everyone in Japan knows it too. The sooner they cancel or postpone and get on with solutions, the better.
nkrisc 7y ago
Not cancelling or postponing the Olympics is massively irresponsible. That said, those who would still choose to attend are beyond help and a risk to their communities.

Amygaz 7y ago

It's not a question of cost at this point. It's a question of availability of reagents and consumables, materials to make those, and time it takes to ramp up. The supply chain is like a supertanker. At first we didn't have enough test, but that ramped up quickly, then we didn't have enough RNA extraction reagent, now we don't have enough swabs, and soon is the collection media that will be missing. There has been a call for more protective equipement. But as the situation gets worst, beds space, ventilator, and then staff are going to be the bottleneck. If you google you'll find stories of people helping their local hospital by 3D printing parts for for respirators, and swabs. There's nothing cost effective about that, it's not fast, but it gets the job done. If you were to scale that, you would be competing for the same materials than manufacturers using injection molding or plastic dipping are.

ksrm 7y ago
> At first we didn't have enough test, but that ramped up quickly, then we didn't have enough RNA extraction reagent, now we don't have enough swabs, and soon is the collection media that will be missing. Where are you getting this information from?
- icegreentea2 7y ago
  For RNA extraction: https://cen.acs.org/analytical-chemistry/diagnostics/Shortage-RNA-extraction-kits-hampers/98/web/2020/03 https://cen.acs.org/analytical-chemistry/diagnostics/Shortag... for an example. For swabs - here's an example in action up in Ontario Canada: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/ontario-limits-who-can-be-tested-for-covid-19-due-to-demand-for-nasal-swabs-1.4853260 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/ontario-limits-who... No one is out trying to actively hide this information, but its spread does seem a little uneven. I also don't want this to be fearmongering. Capacity and supply will grow (hopefully fast enough). Alternative solutions will be validated. We will keep bumping into problems, and we'll keep solving them (cause we'll need to).
tonetheman 7y ago
We do not have tests. https://covidtracking.com/data/ https://covidtracking.com/data/ We have tested 150K people. We have 327M people in the US, we have tested 0.00046% of the population. We do not have tests.
- mjewkes 7y ago
  0.046% You didn’t multiply by 100 to change from per unit to per cent. Still bad though.
  - tonetheman 7y ago
    awwwww man ... i suck at math. thanks!
- DennisP 7y ago

snewman 7y ago

This site shows the number of tests performed in each state in the US: https://covidtracking.com/data/ https://covidtracking.com/data/

supportlocal4h 7y ago
That site demonstrates the erratic nature of current data. For instance, their source data for Nevada is https://app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrIjoiMjA2ZThiOWUtM2FlNS00MGY5LWFmYjUtNmQwNTQ3Nzg5N2I2IiwidCI6ImU0YTM0MGU2LWI4OWUtNGU2OC04ZWFhLTE1NDRkMjcwMzk4MCJ9 https://app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrIjoiMjA2ZThiOWUtM2FlNS0... At the moment of this comment that data says that ~2500 tests have been performed and ~2700 people have been tested. Perhaps those numbers were transposed. Maybe there is a simple, explainable mistake. But all the numbers everywhere are so full of errors, it makes casual statistical analysis just a fancy form of home entertainment at the moment.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

I think testing mostly matters to prove to people this is real, but tests don't actually stop the disease. They aren't a cure. I don't know how to get there from here, but I would like to see a great deal more focus on best practices and cultural change. That's how this pandemic will be stopped and prevented from recurring. Tests will only elucidate how bad it is, but aren't actual treatment. Stop touching your face. Stop touching everything. Stop shaking hands. Maybe adopt bowing instead as a respectful greeting. Wash your hands. Be more supportive of remote work. Design more services that help make flexible remote work a good thing for workers. (I like the Textbroker model. I've tried to promote that previously. No one cared or thought it mattered. Now, maybe people will pay attention.) Light one small candle rather than curse the dark. Focus on promoting solutions. We don't do enough of that.

mynegation 7y ago
I agree with you on almost all points, but testing does help to stop the disease. They are not a cure but an ability to test infected and recovered people en masse would help immensely to (a) isolate contagious people as soon as possible (b) confirm that the virus is cleared and the person can go back to the productive work with at least some assurance of immunity.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Let me try to put that another way: Tests are information. I think we have enough information to try to err on the side of "Let's just assume everyone is a danger. Let's just globally reduce our cavalier, casual exposure to germs as a matter of course." To me, it's crazy to insist we need to keep testing and we need to know who has it to protect people. Social distancing and good hygiene are effective whether the person has been identified or not. I wish we would just go with that and stop acting like "a return to normal" is the goal and just around the corner for most people, if only we can identify the parties guilty of being infected and Target them. It kind of doesn't matter. Just stop touching your face, among other things.
  - mynegation 7y ago

mynegation 7y ago

Ontario publishes this statistic and updates it twice daily [1]. It was just under 2% but started to creep up. To understand the numbers better it helps to know that currently there is about a 6 day wait on the test results. Until very recently criteria for testing were very stringent (2+ symptoms, recent travel), and even then only 2% were found to have it, which - in my understanding - disqualifies the idea that virus was already around for a while. [1] https://www.ontario.ca/page/2019-novel-coronavirus https://www.ontario.ca/page/2019-novel-coronavirus