Posted on 03/15/2020 11:33:15 AM PDT by shineon
Number of specimens tested for SARS-CoV-2 by CDC labs
In theory, I agree. What happens to the average persons mindset if 400,000 (10%) should return positive? In general, people react either when someone they know is positive or a “significant” number, say “almost a half a million people are currently positive”.
Either way as the data emerges we will know more.
The CDC is busy doing this:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/election-polling-locations.html
Recommendations for Election Polling Locations
You should assume in any crowd, there will be infected people that could infect you. So, self-isolate as much as possible.
There is no cure for Covid-19, so at this point testing is really not important. If your symptoms become severe, you will get directed to a hospital for more medical support, JUST LIKE IT WORKS FOR THE FLU.
The fixation on COVID-19 testing is not productive or rational.
Did testing help South Korea contain this virus or not?
South Korean has been at about 8000 for a while now... Italy and Iran not so much.
In WA state, a healthcare testing business received government funding to test sample people with the ordinary flu. They collected about 11,000 samples.
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With the new virus, on their own, they went back and tested those samples for COVID-19. They found nealy a hundred actually had COVID-19.
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They told the CDC.
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They were informed that those test results were private and that they could not legally tell the patients or even health authorities that they had the virus.
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Got a link to the source of that “information”?
gandalftb
Too late for that now. You can blame the Obama administration, lifer-congress critters, and lifer Federal bureaucrats for failing to reform regulations and processes after the MERS outbreak -- that is what South Korea did. It was no magic that they were better prepared than most countries. They made the necessary changes years ago.
Bogging down the Trump Administration with constant hoaxes and impeachment garbage probably didn't help us either.
Testing can be for surveillance or diagnostics. Surveillance testing is aimed at reducing the spread of infection or monitoring the spread of infection. Diagnostic testing is to identify infection for treatment purposes.
The treatment for covid-19 is self-isolation unless severe symptoms develop. The same as the FLU, you don't need a test to figure out what to do.
Note, I am not suggesting that Covid-19 is "just the flu." I am suggesting that the treatment and preventative measures are the same as for the flu, until a cure or other treatments are discovered.
Personally, I think part of what SK did was, by having drive-thru testing, EVERYBODY was made keenly aware of the problem, and reacted accordingly.
I have pretty good faith in our ability to self-isolate and minimize transmission. Except people were not trustworthy, so we needed to ban big gatherings and stuff. I hope they can refrain from shutting down gyms or closing restaurants. Restaurants can to most of their sales with carry-out, and gyms (the good ones) are some of the cleanest places you can find short of hospitals (and don’t have the problem of a constant stream of sick people).
The virus is invisible until you test it. period. Unless you test you are making a guess. Who has ever constantly achieved success through guessing?
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