C-19 is asymptomatic in too many people for the idea that more testing can eliminate it. Impossible.

The bulk of the workload is probably very similar to the Census - yes there are some statisticians, some analysts and managers making workflow decisions, but most of the labor is people in cubicles cold calling long lists they are given (e.g. everyone in the same apartment building) and asking scripted questions, no critical thinking needed.

No doubt it would have lower bang-for-the-buck now than when the country had 15 cases, but once new cases really drop and quarantine measures are lifted, new cases will again be more localised, fewer in number and often present as clusters as they had early on. Contact tracing will make a lot of sense.

Agree with you. That is basically what I was saying
If new cases pop in areas not ALREADY hitting herd immunity it really makes sense. Mass testing NYC, finding out millions have it and trying to contact trace is a bunch too late
 
Agree with you. That is basically what I was saying
If new cases pop in areas not ALREADY hitting herd immunity it really makes sense. Mass testing NYC, finding out millions have it and trying to contact trace is a bunch too late
Yup that's fair enough. Also if it was an either-or choice between testing a large plurality of the population and contact tracing with no testing, I reckon testing would be more important.

Really with any population, some balance of both would be beneficial. Even in NYC, having someone calling the apartment manager where the person lives to post a note in the lobby that says 'get tested if you feel sick at all' is going to be beneficial. When we are approaching 40-50% infected yeah whatevers, but even in the Santa Clara study that's come under fire for potentially overestimating, the upper estimate of prevelance in the population is 4%. I think very few places if any in the US are approaching herd immunity yet. Except individual nursing homes.
 
I feel like the antibody tests coming out are going to be the real way to make sure that it's safe to truly start running our counties normally. Of course you can't test all 360 million Americans, that would take far too long. Samples should be collected from populations around the country in both urban and rural populations to assess how much of the population has built immunity to the virus.....how many to get an accurate estimate of the number that are immune, I don't know. If we get to that 60% number the experts are talking about and herd immunity is supposedly in place then it's time to get things moving.

you’re absolutely right but the problem is that we are likely nowhere close to those numbers and many more people would die on the way to getting to them.

Didn’t they do that serology sampling in LA county and it revealed infection rates may have been 50x higher than the actual number of recorded positive tests? But I think the same article indicated that this number would still represent only 5 percent of LA county.

I could certainly be wrong on that so correct me if I am but yeah that is a way to go.

I feel like the notion NYC is already approaching herd immunity is wishful thinking. I’d guess it’s closer to 10 percent.
 
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