I think we’ve determined that it’s just a warning that can be ignored…
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4-6 weeks of being serious to handle the initial spread caused by negligence in no early testing. Followed by immediate universal masking (which has ~zero economic pain associated).
Then maybe ~3weeks in targeted areas each 6 months, but only since there’s not an adequate surveillance and contact tracing apparatus either.
The initial “not really a lockdown” took longer to have a more muted effect than a more organized response would have. This is not just the Administration’s failing, but also Congress (not providing effective economic lifelines for everyone affected), and some state and local governments. And then any temporary benefits gained were immediately thrown away by the President’s very public anti-mask and anti-science campaign that followed, in direct opposition to his own officials’ recommendations. We unfortunately received the worst of both worlds. Sharp short/medium term pain during the initial lockdowns reduction in activities, followed by immediately ceding any and all progress and starting a long term bleeding. And that’s why the US has the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world.
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Welcome Home… wondered why we hadn’t heard your voice for a while.
Nice comments today, in both areas of interest. (corona & war)
“Disney’s disappointment betrays a similar, dispassionate acceptance of the pandemic’s toll — as countless scientists and public-health officials have pointed out, just because the American economy is more open doesn’t mean it’s any safer for those who elect (or are forced) to participate in it. And most Americans know that. Polls suggest that only a third of Americans say they currently feel safe going out to eat; roughly a quarter say they’d feel comfortable going on vacation or going to the movies. Nineteen percent say they’d feel safe going to an amusement park, like Disney World”
“Anyone caught reporting a crime will be punished.” - comment stolen from reddit.
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I can’t imagine the pressure on petty tyrants a.k.a. school administrators right now.
This is a good article on a rapid frequent testing paradigm to public health.
Currently, the main obstacles are that
- An at home saliva test is regulated as an FDA diagnostic (which means without approval it’s illegal to sell them, even to businesses or schools who want them), and the FDA doesn’t have a real way of approving less sensitive tests when better ones are available (ie PCR, but much more $$ and slower) so no companies are making them even though scale isn’t hard
- Another regulatory barrier is not reporting CT values with test results, since most ppl with high CTs >(mid 30s) are likely already over it and only a few are recent cases about to become more infectious. If you test them again and it’s not much higher, assume the former.
side notes
- Contact tracing is probably worthless with frequent testing
- Pooling samples for households makes sense but has regulatory issues (not being able to trace back to the positive person, but you just quarantine everyone anyway)
- Less sensitive tests will very likely catch all super spreaders early since they have very high concentrations
In summary, long delays in testing is worthless from a public health perspective and our regulatory framework is designed for medicine and not public health and so is stopping an effective route towards containing the virus.
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The testing is a joke.
My sister was tested on a Saturday, and didn’t receive the results saying that she was positive until the following Thursday. She was not told to quarantine until the results arrived. She semi-self-quarantined while awaiting the results.
Prior to that she (probably) infected my parents. My mother got tested on a Wednesday, and didn’t receive the results until the following Monday. She was told on that Monday to quarantine. My father didn’t get tested. He reluctantly followed my advice of adding tonic to his gin. 
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Good luck flying anywhere abroad. Many places are requiring a negative test 3 days prior to departure, and an official letter to that effect, but almost nowhere in the US has that fast a turnaround so you won’t be allowed on your flight.
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Well look at this. From the NY Times no less, not some obscure right wing publication.
25-50% of the population may already be immune to Covid-19.
(Efit to clarify: Not necessarily a ‘clean’ immunity, but equiped to some degree to quickly ward off infection and minimize the severity.)
The article you linked made no such claim. Immune <> possibly some resistance.
A flurry of recent studies has revealed that a large proportion of the population — 20 to 50 percent of people in some places — might harbor immunity assassins called T cells that recognize the new coronavirus despite having never encountered it before.
These T cells, which lurked in the bloodstreams of people long before the pandemic began, are most likely stragglers from past scuffles with other, related coronaviruses, including four that frequently cause common colds. It’s a case of family resemblance: In the eyes of the immune system, germs with common roots can look alike, such that when a cousin comes to call, the body may already have an inkling of its intentions
That’s the whole concept of “immunity”. Just how effective that T cell response is remains unknown, but there is a response and 25-50% of the population may have that response.
Sorry - 20 - 50%.
Unfortunately asymptomatic appear to be at least equally infectious as those with significant symptoms. Unknown for how long they’re infectious but the total presence of the virus remnants is higher than symptomatic. Immunity would prevent the virus from replicating as much and being able to spreadfrom the individual.
Some people having light or no symptoms isn’t exactly groundbreaking news… so I’m not sure why the article “surprised” you that NYT would post it). It’s good news but not new news. And learning things about why some people might be asymptomatic is also good news (and maybe also new news).
It’s understandable this remains unknown. Outside a controlled environment where you intentionally expose people and hope some are asymptomatic, it’s mostly luck to even know when an asymptomatic person became infectious.
I take such reports as more indication this virus isn’t nearly as infectious as it’s been made out to be.
Not quite following what you’re saying… If the possibility being entertained is that there’s more people significantly exposed that didn’t get sick yet because they’re nearly invulnerable, that cannot lower the known infections. If anything, (if we assume that’s the case, for this hypothetical ) wouldn’t that indicate it is even more infectious?? It would mean the observed infections are from a smaller and less dense subset of population. And the virus must be overcoming even more obstacles to spread so fast.
I think it’s just as infectious, but herd immunity level needed could be a lot lower than you might have naively thought (ie 70%). If many peoples’ related T-cell exposure to common cold coronaviruses means they aren’t going to get sick from this one, maybe that means we’re already at 20-30% immunity and somewhere like NYC where antibody tests show another 25% of people already had it may well be close to herd immunty. This could explain why, despite having jammed public transit and all those protests, the NYC levels are very low relatively speaking.
I admit this may be a bit of optimistic thinking.
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And… The US state department also cautions against traveling to areas with zero known cases (not counting travelers in quarantineisolation), because those countries somehow have an elevated risk of getting covid.
1 in 3 wearing masks, distancing of about 2 ft, crowded indoor place, few students already tested positive a day before, what could possibly go wrong… 
But my kids said it’s pretty much what their corridors look like too at class change. So I’m kinda glad they’re doing 100% remote schooling this fall.
But how many kids spend 10 minutes in those halls standing next to the same people?
This is what I was getting at with Bendr. Logic says that all these asymptomatic persons unknowingly walking around would spread the virus to the entire community within a couple weeks, especially somewhere like NYC. So there is a key piece of the puzzle still missing. Some have thought that the answer is that asymptomatic persons don’t spread it. But if that’s being disproven, it leaves “not as contagious” and “existing immunity” as the likely explanations.
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