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Adjutant
 
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Post 28 Mar 2020, 10:59 am

I had not looked into the accuracy of the test but in general getting faster results is going to be key in being able to reopen the economy. A test with even 60% reliability is better if able to be done on a mass basis than one that takes a lot longer and only can be done on much fewer people. Onviously, this could only be used as an initial quick, screening device, but it can still be useful. We're going to have to test everyone....repeatedly...I think. Cant do that if you have to send it out to a lab and it takes hours for results And keep working on more accurate, quicker tests. Right now, I guess were thinking well try to reopen the economy and we wont know really for vast numbers of people whether they have it or not. Now maybe if you get new cases down very low you are also getting asymptomatic cases down very low too so the virus has been suppressed. But they are talking about people in China getting positive tests, getting negative tests, and then positive tests. So who knows how long this virus is contagious for. Reopening and letting large numbers people back into public when we have no idea as to whether they have the virus or not, it seems like that would be risky. To me, you want to go back into public with few restrictions you need to be tested. And retested.
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Adjutant
 
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Post 30 Mar 2020, 11:34 pm

I just thought this way of assessing whether the lockdown measures are working is so fascinating.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytime ... s.amp.html

I am just wondering if this kind of mass data collection of symptoms has greater applicability. Maybe if people around the country uploaded their symptoms to various websites and this could give a heads-up on areas where the virus was heating up.
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Ambassador
 
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Post 31 Mar 2020, 6:25 am

freeman3 wrote:I just thought this way of assessing whether the lockdown measures are working is so fascinating.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytime ... s.amp.html

I am just wondering if this kind of mass data collection of symptoms has greater applicability. Maybe if people around the country uploaded their symptoms to various websites and this could give a heads-up on areas where the virus was heating up.


That's very interesting … thank you. If they were incentivized to share their data we could learn a lot more such as better estimates of the penetration rate locally, nationally, and maybe even internationally.

BTW J&J thinks they will have a vaccine by early 2021. I don't think they would make such an announcement without a high level of confidence.
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Adjutant
 
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Post 31 Mar 2020, 8:13 am

They do seem to be fairly confident as they are starting to manufacture large quantities of the vaccine now. Obviously, a a failure would be an enormous hit to their reputation and a success the opposite...so they got a lot riding on this. We'll see.
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Statesman
 
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Post 31 Mar 2020, 8:25 am

freeman3
I am just wondering if this kind of mass data collection of symptoms has greater applicability


Probably not for a virus like CD19.
The advantage of mega data is sort of like the law of big numbers . However, with a virus that is asymptomatic but still highly contagious for a week ... by the time the data starts to show infection (fevers) .... the virus is already well ensconced within the community.

China gave everyone a heads up....and effectively quarantined the area of the break out. . South Korea tested tons of people and isolated quickly. So did SIngapore.
The rest of us?
A jurisdiction had to act quickly and prior to the virus travelling into your area. There's too much lag in data from this app to really help. Sure it can say, hey there's a lot of fevers in your area yesterday... But from there the route to hospitalization and ICU is rapid.

And honestly, we already know whats happening. Scaling up the ability of hospitals to respond needed to happen long before the populace starts to show mass infection (which is what this app indicates).

Now if everyone wore medical devices that provided information constantly the way google works to provide travel data for their Android Drive GPS ... then we've got a powerful diagnostic tool for public health. Maybe not as effective for CD19, but probably really helpful for other communicable diseases. But this seems like maybe only an initial and not very helpful (yet) tool.
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Post 31 Mar 2020, 8:35 am

rayjay
BTW J&J thinks they will have a vaccine by early 2021. I don't think they would make such an announcement without a high level of confidence


Based on long term history, such confidence may be misplaced.


A database was actively compiled to include all vaccine projects in development from 1998 to 2009 in the pre-clinical development phase, clinical trials phase I, II and III up to Market Registration. The average vaccine, taken from the preclinical phase, requires a development timeline of 10.71 years and has a market entry probability of 6%

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3603987/

However; More recently the success rate for vaccinnes for infectious disease has improved. Possibly because of the greater understanding of the genome.
Vaccines for infectious disease and ophthalmology drugs had the highest success rates, with 33.4% and 32.6% of Phase I compounds, respectively, eventually approved
.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i7/Drug ... igher.html

I have a feeling that there are a lot of irons in the fire on this however. And someone somewhere will be in that 33% successful fairly quickly. The odds are against any individual company having the winner. But the odds that one of dozens trying ... will find a vaccine - pretty good.
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Post 03 Apr 2020, 9:42 am

"on Tuesday, March 31st, a chart was positioned behind the lectern where Trump and others, such as Dr. Deborah Birx, spoke. Birx is coordinator of the coronavirus task force. The chart’s title was “Goals of Community Mitigation.”

Everyone in America and around the world who’s been paying attention in recent weeks is aware of the curves included in the chart. Importantly, on Tuesday, figures were added to the curves showing expected numbers of deaths with and without social distancing measures: 1,5 to 2.5 million deaths without social distancing, 100 to 240 thousand deaths with social distancing measures."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohe ... 836341144e

So I guess the question is, How's that social distancing thing going? It doesn't sound like it is...

Eleven governors haven’t yet ordered people in their states to stay at home. Furthermore, the 39 states that now have some form of a stay-at-home order have implemented measures that are far from consistent in interpretation and execution.Take, for example, Florida. Following mounting pressure, Governor DeSantis issued a stay-at-home order which goes into effect today. But, controversially the governor made religious activities, such as church services, exempt as they are deemed “essential.” DeSantis is not alone, as 11 other states have created exemptions for religious gatherings.


So i guess we're going to find out out effective prayer is as a deterrent....
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Dignitary
 
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Post 03 Apr 2020, 11:12 am

It depends on where you are. My kids haven't left the apartment in over 2 weeks.

But even in NYC where social distancing is taken incredibly seriously, the areas where service workers live, the delivery people. clerks, grocery store workers, who are all still working, are just getting crushed.

And in truth is stranger than fiction: the neighborhood hardest hit by the Corona Virus is Corona Queens.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-york-neighborhoods-with-the-most-coronavirus-cases-11585781164
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Statesman
 
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Post 03 Apr 2020, 2:14 pm

When this eventually passes, I suspect that some things will have changed in society.
For one, I suspect fundamental religions to have lost a a lot of adherents. Partly because I expect those groups will be hit harder (attrition), but also partly because of a greater appreciation for science.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/midd ... virus.html

I also suspect that there may be a shift in the US, where the attitude towards government as a solution may gain credence.

And I think Trump may finally degrade support below an electable level after his performance in this crisis.

There are some good things happening. I don't know what your experience shopping at Costco is like. For me its normally a struggle through the massed crowds . This week I queued for 25 minutes, a metre spaced from the persons before and after me .... Then when I finally got in I sailed through a clean, well stocked store with no trouble. Took 10 minutes to get my list when it normally would have been half an hour... And check out was one cart deep....
I think they should do this all the time. (Although the parking lot was only a third full.)
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Adjutant
 
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Post 04 Apr 2020, 12:35 am

Speaking of science, I feel like statistical sampling by randomly testing people is one possibility that may be part of reopening the economy and also deciding when and when to go back to shut-downs.. We'll assume testing everyone is just not feasible. I know Australia is doing random testing to get more info on the virus. But hopefully some mathematician can figure the optimal way to randomly test people on a daily basis in a given area to hopefully give us more timely information on the virus instead of being two weeks behind. I tried reading a study on optimal sampling with regard to the West Nile virus but at this point in my life thst just gives me a headache but you know there are people that like math out there.

Some elements of reopening would possibly invve:

(1) Identifying people who have an immunity. They can be the first to go back to work.
(2) Reducing the number of new cases in a given area to a low number
(3) Randomized testing to hopefully to get some idea of the virus--including identifying percentage of recovereds once sociological testing is developed
(4) Making enough masks for everyone to be able to use
(5) Probably continued travel restrictions
(6) Continued focus on people being able to work from home, if possible.
(7) Probably start with allowing 20-50 age group go back first

Of course the unbelievable incompetence in not having a coordinated federal response to make everything that is needed to fight this virus and shift resources--including medical personnel--to hot spots is not helping matters. But lockdowns appear to be working--the earlier done the better--and the next step would be restarting things as soon as it can be safely done.
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Adjutant
 
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Post 04 Apr 2020, 3:47 am

A potential weakness in the virus.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sandie ... f_amp=true
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Statesman
 
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Post 04 Apr 2020, 8:11 am

freeman3
We'll assume testing everyone is just not feasible.


Why not? Eventually everyone will have to get vaccinated when a vaccine is produced.
The current problem is that the test results take time. OR we're told they take time. However in South Korea they had a system that got same day results for everyone tested. And they have tested about 8,900 out of every million...

If the South Koreans can do it.... why can't everyone do it. It just takes political will, and strong governments.

Moreover there is a pretty good chance that new pin prick tests being rolled out in Australia will produce 15 minute results...

Small countries like Iceland offer the most insight into quickly developing the model you suggest. Iceland have tested almost 20% of their population and its there that we learned that completely symptomatic people represent about half of the infected.. If they keep up testing they'll get to everyone in the country in about 20 more days.At that point they can start going back to normal, isolating only carriers...

ahttps://www.worldometers.info/coronavi ... countries..

But this is going to take a strong government response on a national level, and an awful lot of nations won't be bringing that to the table...
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Adjutant
 
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Post 04 Apr 2020, 9:11 am

We would have to massively improve testing capacity. Right now, we can do what 100,000 a day. At that rate it would 3,000 days to test people. If you did 1,000,000 tests a day it would 300 days or so. But I guess we'll see what we can do. If you imagine that we knew everyone who was negative, everyone who was positive and everyone who was immune at any point in time--which would enable us to return to normalcy--then getting as close as possible to that imaginary ideal is what is needed. While actually testing everyone would be the so-called gold standard, random testing of people might get us somewhat there.
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Adjutant
 
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Post 04 Apr 2020, 9:23 am

If we were able to massively improve testing capacity, the other thing we could do is focus on the working age population that is still low-risk. Age 18-44 is about 36% of the population. Test that age tier first.
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Adjutant
 
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Post 04 Apr 2020, 9:41 am

By the way Iceland is doing randomized screening:

"Keep in mind that the screening is now randomized, but voluntary so there is some bias in the data," the Directorate of Health said in a statement, adding that a "randomized screening program has started and a blood serum screening for antibodies is planned."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/europe/i ... gfooterold