OT: Christmas and Covid

[Russ Wheeler]

I think the cheap rapid ones aren't the most reliable. I know I've read of some tests that Israel was pushing earlier in the year that that were cheap and you could take by yourself at home. Idea being if they cost a buck or two and are 80% accurate, then take two tests, if you are negative twice, you probably are fine to be near folks (0.2 x 0.2 = 0.04 false negative chance and acceptable). Nobody would ever want to rely on that for official medical diagnosis, but for managing a pandemic, that's exactly what you want. You've got a cheap indicator that says lay low and you go to the doc and confirm it rather than potentially expose people and allow the virus to continue.

That general concept is what has irritated me about this entire experience. Academia is too geared towards achieving perfection. While you want that for the research of disease and appropriate treatment, we are talking managing the masses and beating down a virus at a macro level where time is of the essence. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough. Get people some reasonably effective testing that cost scalable and can be done at home. Then it takes the asymptomatic carrier challenge to this virus down a few notches.

Fair post, I would agree with this. The two biggest things that stoked the fear were the length of time the virus lived on surfaces (been debunked), and the asymptomatic carrying.