How are Singapore and S Korea testing so many/day?
***********************************************************************************
I don’t know and that was not my point. So I’ll attempt to explain what I was trying to emphasize with my comment about accuracy.
There can be carriers who tested negative or the healthy people incorrectly tagged by false positive tests, and multiple tests are needed to confirm and even multiple tests can fail.
The asymptomatic carriers who have not been identified because 1) they have no symptoms and thus no reason to get tested and 2) they chose not to go to a doctor or hospital despite having symptoms are also potential problems.
Since asymptomatic carriers can spread the pathogen, the majority of carriers remain unknown. Since not every symptomatic carrier chooses to go to the hospital, many cases remain unknown.
If I understand it correctly, the viral load has to be strong enough before the test will be positive. This can be a problem both before the illness is detected, and with people who have very mild/unnoticed symptoms, and when the patient has “recovered” but may still be shedding the virus.
Keep the people who came here from China in Quarantine for 4 weeks. Testing is Fine, but the treatment is going to be determined by the severity of the symptoms. All contagious diseases should be isolated anyway.
One of the doctors I listened to on you tube said that the cat scan of the lungs was probably a better way to go anyway—at this point in time. And when China starting reporting those-their cases spiked up—so then they went back to only reporting those tested—and the cases went down. It’s a mess no doubt.
As to your point of doing more testing, of course there’s the question of where do you spend your health care dollars—which gives the biggest benefit to the patients?
Article from Forbes attempts to answer that, and I’m not saying that I agree entirely with it, but I do at least understand the point they are making.
My main point was not to rely on the test entirely as a method for determining when to let people avoid or get out of quarantine.
******
Testing For Novel Coronavirus In All Patients With Unexplained Pneumonia Is Probably Not Cost-Effective
Agree about the 4 week quarantine.
See this...interesting testing method...
http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3819771/posts?page=797#797