Quote:
Originally Posted by kgrund
Seems a little unorthodox, but has any consideration been given in terms of our testing focus? It seems to only make sense to test really sick people when they are coming in because you want to know what they have and in most outbreaks the truly sick drive an outbreak. However, given rising evidence that the individuals that do not appear sick or have milder symptoms are driving this pandemic should our primary focus turn to them given our limited time and resources?
You could test the truly sick coming in for the other potential health issues that the sickness could be from. If they test negative on all of them, the assumption would be that they have it especially if they are exhibiting the classic symptoms. With the time and resources saved from diagnosing the truly sick, you could (1) test the ones would believe they have it, but are told to stay home and (2) test statistical samples of the population to determine the extent of the spread.
Certainly the numbers of positives from people showing up at the hospitals would not be dramatically different, but we would get a far greater understanding of the problem we are dealing with.
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You'd need the capacity to test a large, random sample, and quite frankly, you need a test with much better sensitivity.
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"When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”--Abraham Lincoln
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