Interesting analysis by Stanford Epidemiologist

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The_Fox
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In reply to [removed post] • 11:59p, 3/18/20
jj9000 said:
Hop said:
agsalaska said:
I disagree with your option 1. Our medical professionals will beat this. And we will bounce back much better than that.
Will the medical professionals fix the resulting broken economy that could take years to rebuild? We are looking at "whatever it takes to stop the virus" and shutting down our economy to save a few thousand lives, but at what cost? Sending more than half of the population into debt and poverty? I don't know the answers. Maybe it is worth it to save a few thousand lives, but at the very least it is valid to ask questions of the economists and weigh the different outcomes without being shouted down by the "do whatever it takes" crowd who think medical professionals have all the answers. They have answers for only part of the equation....how to stop the virus. They don't know what the economic consequences will be to our society from their recommendations.

Our politicians and public policy leaders should be encouraged to at least have that discussion and weigh both sides. That isn't happening now. Good to see a few articles in major newspapers starting to discuss this issue.
Would it be worth it to save your (Hop's) family?

No need for a paragraph.

A simple yes, or no will be sufficient.


I can't speak for Hop, but the Fox's family has almost zero risk. The Fox has done far riskier things in his life than visiting Wuhan and being exposed to COVID.

Sometimes you just have to nut up and push through.
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NASAg03
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In reply to [removed post] • 12:43a, 3/19/20
jj9000 said:
Hop said:
agsalaska said:
I disagree with your option 1. Our medical professionals will beat this. And we will bounce back much better than that.
Will the medical professionals fix the resulting broken economy that could take years to rebuild? We are looking at "whatever it takes to stop the virus" and shutting down our economy to save a few thousand lives, but at what cost? Sending more than half of the population into debt and poverty? I don't know the answers. Maybe it is worth it to save a few thousand lives, but at the very least it is valid to ask questions of the economists and weigh the different outcomes without being shouted down by the "do whatever it takes" crowd who think medical professionals have all the answers. They have answers for only part of the equation....how to stop the virus. They don't know what the economic consequences will be to our society from their recommendations.

Our politicians and public policy leaders should be encouraged to at least have that discussion and weigh both sides. That isn't happening now. Good to see a few articles in major newspapers starting to discuss this issue.
Would it be worth it to save your (Hop's) family?

No need for a paragraph.

A simple yes, or no will be sufficient.
If every life was worth it, where were you for the 20k to 60k that died from seasonal flu last year? For a 4 month flue season, that's 5k to 15k per month. I didn't see any reports, or have to shelter in place to protect them, or didn't see the government spending an additional $20million per life in attempts to beat the flu.

And that's AFTER immunizations and anti-virals. Meaning more could be done. Yet we don't. We let them die.

But 10x more deadly and all the sudden everyone turns into a white knight and every life is priceless. Bull*****
Mike Shaw - Class of '03
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Not a Bot
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In reply to Halconblack • 1:42a, 3/19/20
AG
Halconblack said:
Moxley,
With all due respect, what the heck are you talking about? The article is clearly based off the mortality rate from the infected passengers (There were 700 infected and 7 that died). Your comment has zero relevance to the article and represents the kind of misunderstanding of the facts that is threatening to plunge this country into a recession.


Thanks for the correction, misread what he said.

And I understand the facts quite well.

Imagine the cruise ship not going into lockdown. Let's say 7 deaths turn into 30 or so. That's on a ship with around 2600 people.

Now imagine if a town of 50,000 lets it spread unabated because people are dumb and don't social distance. You're talking maybe 500-1000 people needing hospital care in a relatively short time in that town. Once the cat is out of the bag with community spread, that can happen VERY quickly. What then? Hospitals can't support that. It's like a flu season taking place all within two weeks instead of 5 months.

That's the point of the social distancing. People are stupid and won't stop crowding up to each other to "live their best life yolo lolz." They were still crowding bourbon street over the weekend. Louisiana hospitals getting hammered. Not a coincidence.

The data we are seeing suggested a repeat of Italy in some areas and they did not want to risk millions of lives lost. It was enough of a possibility that they did what they did.
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Not a Bot
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In reply to NASAg03 • 1:45a, 3/19/20
AG
It's more deadly and isn't gradually happening over four or five months. Imagine all those people getting the flu in 3-4 weeks instead of five months. That's what we are dealing with. Hospitals get overwhelmed, people start dying of other treatable conditions due to lack of care.
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NASAg03
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2:00a, 3/19/20
In this instance, I'm not debating hospital overload, I'm debating the appeal to sentiment as justification for excessive resources spent to fight this.
Mike Shaw - Class of '03
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Not a Bot
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In reply to NASAg03 • 2:04a, 3/19/20
AG
NASAg03 said:
In this instance, I'm not debating hospital overload, I'm debating the appeal to sentiment as justification for excessive resources spent to fight this.


I'm in agreement that the measures were too extreme outside of the major outbreak zones. Statewide shutdowns are ridiculous. Should have been up to local situation on a case by case basis. Some towns have no known cases and are in lockdown. Unnecessary hit to local economy. Easier in that case to screen and quarantine.
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Sandman98
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2:22a, 3/19/20
AG
Americans are too accustomed to being coddled by politicians to be told that a slight death risk is one we have to take to prevent the masses from suffering dire economic consequences. It will never happen again. Everyone is a slave to cable news and political tribalism.
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bmart97
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In reply to Not a Bot • 6:45a, 3/19/20
AG
Moxley said:
The people on the Princess Cruise ship were ordered to quarantine in their rooms. That's the primary reason it wasn't as deadly.


After floating around in a petri dish for a month.
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dellgriffith
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In reply to AvidAggie • 7:01a, 3/19/20
AG
AvidAggie said:
NASAg03 said:
As if that doctor, and I, don't know how exponential growth occurs. You insinuate that intelligent people don't know how to do basic math, and that's why we arrived at our asinine opinions. That doesn't do much to further the conversation or find a solution, but you're a doctor and know everything.

Here's some basic math for you:

Option 1:

We delay the virus spread as long as possible over the course of a year. 2.2 millions Americans die, but our hospitals are over-run with 2x the normal deaths as usual in this country. 3000 additional Americans die / day over those 12 months.

In addition, we fall into a recession that lasts for 2 years. Over those 2 years, reduced income for patients, and closed doctors offices, and out-of-date medical equipment results in an annual increase in 1 million deaths / year.

5.2 million Americans die as a result of CV.

Option 2:

We let the virus run it's course over a few months, build herd immunity, and overload our medical system for 3 months. 2.2 million Americans die + 10000 additional Americans / day over those 3 months.

3 million Americans die as a result of CV.

Which was the better outcome?

Are these numbers completely made up?


About as made up as the infection and mortality rates of this virus.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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dellgriffith
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In reply to Not a Bot • 7:13a, 3/19/20
AG
Moxley said:
It's more deadly and isn't gradually happening over four or five months. Imagine all those people getting the flu in 3-4 weeks instead of five months. That's what we are dealing with. Hospitals get overwhelmed, people start dying of other treatable conditions due to lack of care.


I have seen many of your posts over the last several days. You state with absolute certainty many educated guesses disguised as fact.

Serious question. What if you are wrong?

What if you are underestimating our healthcare system and healthcare professionals? What if you are underestimating the baseline cleanliness of our society? What if the mortality rate of this virus is much closer to that of the flu and nowhere near 2%?
What if the diversity of climates and spread of our population in America causes this virus to behave epidemiologically very different than other countries?

As certain as you are that millions are going to die in America, I am as certain that our cure for this is worse than the virus. That is my educated guess. But at least I entertain that I may be wrong.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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Ranger222
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7:27a, 3/19/20
AG
The biggest misconception on this thread is the "only a few thousand deaths".

If you let this virus wipe through us with zero protective measures, we just continued on like nothing happened, you're talking about deaths in the millions in this country alone. 2 out of every 100 Americans. Probably more due to our increased population of those that are obese and have diabetes, which increase number of serve cases. We are not as healthy as the South Koreans or Japanese.

So if you want to run your risk analysis, do it with the real numbers which would be in the order of millions.
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dellgriffith
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7:36a, 3/19/20
AG
The mortality rate of this virus is nowhere near 2%. It may be 2% for those that are symptomatic and test positive. But the vast majority of the country will either not get the virus or will have little to no symptoms if they get it.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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Pumpkinhead
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In reply to Ranger222 • 7:49a, 3/19/20
AG
Ranger222 said:
The biggest misconception on this thread is the "only a few thousand deaths".

If you let this virus wipe through us with zero protective measures, we just continued on like nothing happened, you're talking about deaths in the millions in this country alone. 2 out of every 100 Americans. Probably more due to our increased population of those that are obese and have diabetes, which increase number of serve cases. We are not as healthy as the South Koreans or Japanese.

So if you want to run your risk analysis, do it with the real numbers which would be in the order of millions.


We know the USA death estimates modeled by the UK and US think tanks if no control measures were put in place and no change in social distancing behavior occurred.

UK report estimated 2.2 million deaths. US report estimated 1.7 million.
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H.E. Pennypacker
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In reply to Not a Bot • 7:52a, 3/19/20
AG
Moxley said:
NASAg03 said:
In this instance, I'm not debating hospital overload, I'm debating the appeal to sentiment as justification for excessive resources spent to fight this.


I'm in agreement that the measures were too extreme outside of the major outbreak zones. Statewide shutdowns are ridiculous. Should have been up to local situation on a case by case basis. Some towns have no known cases and are in lockdown. Unnecessary hit to local economy. Easier in that case to screen and quarantine.


I agree we should do aggressive testing and quarantining when there are isolated numbers. If a community doesn't have several cases, a city wide lockdown doesn't make sense.

But we apparently don't have the resources, manpower, or competence in the right places to implement that strategy like the South Koreans. So here we are I guess.
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beerad12man
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7:56a, 3/19/20
AG
The protect every life at all costs mentality is not realistic. Lets just get that straight. This is about slowing down the spread and trying to lower the death percentage overall.

I'm not trying to be a smart ass, but it isn't a simple "yes" or "no" just about my family. It can't be. Every decision has to have a cost/benefit analysis for the society as a whole. 56K died last year in the US due to the flu. 38,800 due to car accidents. We didn't take any drastic measures for each. Someone on this board might have a family member in one of those statistics.

Now, that said... If we treat this just like the flu, most likely many more than 56K will die. This seems to have a much higher death percentage and of course we don't have vaccines for it yet to prevent many from getting infected. So I don't think anyone of us have a perfect answer.
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agsalaska
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In reply to Hop • 7:57a, 3/19/20
AG
Hop said:
agsalaska said:
I disagree with your option 1. Our medical professionals will beat this. And we will bounce back much better than that.
Will the medical professionals fix the resulting broken economy that could take years to rebuild? We are looking at "whatever it takes to stop the virus" and shutting down our economy to save a few thousand lives, but at what cost? Sending more than half of the population into debt and poverty? I don't know the answers. Maybe it is worth it to save a few thousand lives, but at the very least it is valid to ask questions of the economists and weigh the different outcomes without being shouted down by the "do whatever it takes" crowd who think medical professionals have all the answers. They have answers for only part of the equation....how to stop the virus. They don't know what the economic consequences will be to our society from their recommendations.

Our politicians and public policy leaders should be encouraged to at least have that discussion and weigh both sides. That isn't happening now. Good to see a few articles in major newspapers starting to discuss this issue.
A couple of thoughts.

First, in a perfect world we would have those discussions. But as I have heard and seen posted on thsi board by doctors who fight and study these things, by the time you identify a virus and start talking about vaccines you are already way behind.

Second, they, or should I say we, are not doing this to save a 'few thousand lives.' We are doing it to save tens of millions world wide and, if the CDC estimates are accurate, one to 2.3 million in the US.

Last, and I think most important, is this is the worst move we could make for our economy? The more I think about it the more I disagree with that assumption. If the CDC projections are anywhere near accurate, our economy was in a lot of trouble either way. And the assumption that this will be worse for our economy than the alternative is short sighted.
I don’t say this in a braggedocious way. But it’s true. I’ve been right about everything.

-Donald J Trump
-9/22/2025



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Patentmike
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In reply to Hop • 9:34a, 3/19/20
AG
Hop said:
agsalaska said:
I disagree with your option 1. Our medical professionals will beat this. And we will bounce back much better than that.
Will the medical professionals fix the resulting broken economy that could take years to rebuild? We are looking at "whatever it takes to stop the virus" and shutting down our economy to save a few thousand lives, but at what cost? Sending more than half of the population into debt and poverty? I don't know the answers. Maybe it is worth it to save a few thousand lives, but at the very least it is valid to ask questions of the economists and weigh the different outcomes without being shouted down by the "do whatever it takes" crowd who think medical professionals have all the answers. They have answers for only part of the equation....how to stop the virus. They don't know what the economic consequences will be to our society from their recommendations.

Our politicians and public policy leaders should be encouraged to at least have that discussion and weigh both sides. That isn't happening now. Good to see a few articles in major newspapers starting to discuss this issue.
Hop, this almost reads like a trolling post. Seriously, I would flag it if I could.

We have a handful of examples from different countries regions. We also have what's going on in New York...CNBC article

Shutting down social interaction is the only intervention that's worked so far. Yes, other interventions most likely will work, once we get the data and resources to apply them.

I'm in the oil and gas sector. It is likely my job disappears at the end of March. Believe me, I get the economic stress this is causing. But I was also a PhD candidate in Molecular Virology (took a Masters and went to law school), so I can competently follow the science on this bug. The social distancing is the right decision for today. We need to protect our hospitalization capacity. I am hopeful that we can begin high quality surveillance of virus spread in the next few weeks, but until then partial isolation is our best bet. When this first came out, the data was suggesting 10s of millions of deaths worldwide.

For now, New York is probably our best canary. Watch their data over the next week and then we can start opining with some real information.

Before the libertarians mock me too much... I believe what we are seeing is a great advertisement for free market health care. There is a lot of general medical capacity being redirected toward this outbreak. That capacity wouldn't be there if we were single payer. The capacity would also be lacking if we did not have the Federal contributions via NIH and CDC.

I'm not saying don't question, but with the data I've seen so far, social distancing is the right answer for now.
PatentMike, J.D.
BS Biochem
MS Molecular Virology


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H.E. Pennypacker
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9:38a, 3/19/20
AG
The more I think about it, the more I think the "Let them die" camp is totally wrong. They are ignoring Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and basic human motivations/fear/incentive.

The economy that the Option 2 people want so desperately to save can ONLY exist in the absence of a pandemic or massive war etc. To the extent a large portion of the population feels anxiety or fear, the conditions necessary to create or sustain the Option 2 economy are no longer present.

Option 2 is telling people to stick their fingers in their ears and sing "la la la la la" really loudly and ignore the bodies in the streets. It wouldn't work.
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H.E. Pennypacker
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9:42a, 3/19/20
AG
What the Option 2 people are really advocating is that we should have a ridiculously strong and aggressive pandemic response plan/force to prevent any future major interruptions to our economic well being.
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agsalaska
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In reply to H.E. Pennypacker • 9:54a, 3/19/20
AG
I agree. I think they are wrong too.

But as an earlier poster pointed out to me, this may not work anyways. It better work. It needs to work.
I don’t say this in a braggedocious way. But it’s true. I’ve been right about everything.

-Donald J Trump
-9/22/2025



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AgInFL
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10:03a, 3/19/20
AG
The fascinating thing to me in all of this is that people want to treat the issue as a single variable equation. It's not. The risk of death and the actual deaths each year in the world have a large portion that are multi-factorial. The real measure should be that if we limit the response or if we get ultra aggressive, how much does the 60 million who die every year in the world increase or decrease? Said another way, if COVID 19 were not here, how many of those who ultimately died from it would have died from something else? Focus on the incremental. This is especially relevant given the population that is most at risk.
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eidetic78
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10:05a, 3/19/20
AG
The problem with political discussions is that everyone states extreme hypotheticals on both sides, and then pretends they want to rationally debate them. Unfortunately, many seem to be taking that same approach to discussing this current viral outbreak..

I think we can all agree there will be major economic repercussions either way. (do nothing or stop everything)

We hope elected officials are following the advice of actual experts, but every single decision can be second guessed ad nauseam since the ultimate effect and outcome can't be known.

Like everyone, I hope we're doing enough, and I also hope we're not putting ourselves in an economic hole that takes a long time to dig out of.

Anyone on here firmly stating we absolutely are doing too little or too much are just posting their emotions as fact.
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agsalaska
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In reply to eidetic78 • 10:11a, 3/19/20
AG
eidetic78 said:
The problem with political discussions is that everyone states extreme hypotheticals on both sides, and then pretends they want to rationally debate them. Unfortunately, many seem to be taking that same approach to discussing this current viral outbreak..

I think we can all agree there will be major economic repercussions either way. (do nothing or stop everything)

We hope elected officials are following the advice of actual experts, but every single decision can be second guessed ad nauseam since the ultimate effect and outcome can't be known.

Like everyone, I hope we're doing enough, and I also hope we're not putting ourselves in an economic hole that takes a long time to dig out of.

Anyone on here firmly stating we absolutely are doing to little or too much are just posting their emotions as fact.
Preach brotha.



I have never seen so many slept in a Holiday Inn Express last night experts in my life.
I don’t say this in a braggedocious way. But it’s true. I’ve been right about everything.

-Donald J Trump
-9/22/2025



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agforlife97
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10:20a, 3/19/20
AG
The whole point of the article is that if the death rate is 0.05% instead of something closer to 1%, we've way overreacted and crashed the economy in order to save the lives of a few thousand people with a life expectancy of less than 10 years anyway. And we basically have no idea what the actual background infection rate is so we just don't know. His recommendation that we randomly sample test the population to estimate the background infection rate is the best idea I've seen and I can't believe no one else is talking about that.
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Patentmike
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In reply to agforlife97 • 10:25a, 3/19/20
AG
agforlife97 said:
The whole point of the article is that if the death rate is 0.05% instead of something closer to 1%, we've way overreacted and crashed the economy in order to save the lives of a few thousand people with a life expectancy of less than 10 years anyway. And we basically have no idea what the actual background infection rate is so we just don't know. His recommendation that we randomly sample test the population to estimate the background infection rate is the best idea I've seen and I can't believe no one else is talking about that.
Who says that's not in the plans. They literally made the first mass shipment of tests either Tuesday or yesterday.

PatentMike, J.D.
BS Biochem
MS Molecular Virology


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Bob_Ag
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In reply to agforlife97 • 10:26a, 3/19/20
AG
agforlife97 said:
The whole point of the article is that if the death rate is 0.05% instead of something closer to 1%, we've way overreacted and crashed the economy in order to save the lives of a few thousand people with a life expectancy of less than 10 years anyway. And we basically have no idea what the actual background infection rate is so we just don't know. His recommendation that we randomly sample test the population to estimate the background infection rate is the best idea I've seen and I can't believe no one else is talking about that.
The problem is the only way you can prove that is to know what the death rate is in the absence of taking any action. If the death rate is 0.05%, then you can argue that is because we did in fact take action. You can also argue that there is a chance the death rate is way higher with no action and then not only do you have higher moralities, but the economy is still going to be wrecked.

I do agree that surveillance is what we need.
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Halconblack
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In reply to Not a Bot • 10:30a, 3/19/20
AG
Moxley,
I agree that most people don't act rationally (are dumb). I believe your prediction on their interaction is correct. I also believe that because they don't act rationally they don't have the financial capacity to survive a 30-day shelter in place doctrine. I don't have numbers on the size of that population but neither the Federal or State governments have the capacity or capability to support them.

So the question remains, how do you look at the 300 meter target for the country? Because right now hysteria is forcing us to only look 25 feet in front of our face.
v/r
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eidetic78
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In reply to agforlife97 • 10:38a, 3/19/20
AG
agforlife97 said:
The whole point of the article is that if the death rate is 0.05% instead of something closer to 1%, we've way overreacted and crashed the economy in order to save the lives of a few thousand people with a life expectancy of less than 10 years anyway. And we basically have no idea what the actual background infection rate is so we just don't know. His recommendation that we randomly sample test the population to estimate the background infection rate is the best idea I've seen and I can't believe no one else is talking about that.
As the director of a testing facility, I can tell you that testing the general population is ALL that we're talking about.

Specifically sample collection logistics. Can't send a huge rush of the public to clinics or hospitals for sampling. Also can't cause massive gatherings of people seeking to be tested, since that would be self-defeating. Also can't expose the person doing the sampling directly to the person being sampled because we don't have sufficient PPE to change after every person.

We're setting up some drive-through type collection points to help our workers keep apart from those being tested by leaving them in their cars. It's not something we've experienced before.

Just because we're not streaming our meetings doesn't mean they aren't happening or that we're all idiots and everyone else knows best.

There are two sides of the testing problem right now:
- Availability of reagents (mostly overcome this problem now over the past week)
- Availability of properly accredited labs to deal with the massive influx of tests (we're all actively working to retool to help process this specific sample type)

Right now tests are being turned around in 4/5/6 days, which is too slow. We're bringing new labs and personnel online as the numbers of samples needing testing are rapidly growing, so it's been a stalemate the past couple of weeks. We're hoping to start gaining ground and lower that turn-around.



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JDCAG (NOT Colin)
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In reply to eidetic78 • 10:41a, 3/19/20
AG
Good insight from that side of things - what type of "turnaround time" would you consider best-case to be within a week or so - if everything works regarding bringing more labs online, etc.?

Same day, a few days, etc.? Is there anything in the test that requires a waiting period (i.e. something that would set a "minimum" turnaround time, even in the event of plentiful resources)?

Haven't looked into any of this
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Matt Hooper
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In reply to Hop • 10:42a, 3/19/20
AG
Agree with your central point.

Cost-Benefit decision making is a required burden that comes with positions of significant leadership. In the initial rush to limit the spread of this illness it sure seems like the cost-benefit evaluation has been lacking. When the dust settles and we can learn from a review of facts we should be able to better determine if that is true or false.
Hooper Drives the Boat
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Dr.HeadCase
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10:46a, 3/19/20
AG
I think everyone will agree that we should be using data to inform our decisions. But data takes time to collect. The problem with rapidly spreading viral outbreaks for which you have no treatment is that it spreads faster than you can collect useful amounts of data to make decisions on how to respond. You wait to make "informed" decisions and it's already beat you. This is essentially what Dr. Fauci has been saying. In some ways we're almost 2 weeks behind where we actually are in terms of information because of the nature of this virus. I'm sure the experts are well aware of the economic impact and are weighing those costs. No one is saying these changes will last for months to years. We're trying to see how things go in the next 2 weeks. Just please follow the guidelines for a short while so we actually can collect some informed data to see how it's working.
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eidetic78
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In reply to JDCAG (NOT Colin) • 10:49a, 3/19/20
AG
JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:
Good insight from that side of things - what type of "turnaround time" would you consider best-case to be within a week or so - if everything works regarding bringing more labs online, etc.?

Same day, a few days, etc.? Is there anything in the test that requires a waiting period (i.e. something that would set a "minimum" turnaround time, even in the event of plentiful resources)?

Haven't looked into any of this
I can only speak for my own lab, which does not typically process this type of sample, and is tiny compared to something like labcorp or quest.

We're working with another lab on site who is a dedicated respiratory virus testing lab to act as additional capacity for them, and to process the "research" type community screening samples and let them focus on samples from febrile patients. So turnaround can be different depending on the source.

Our goal is not so much a turn-around target, but a "tests per day" target, since turnaround will be determined by the overall number of tests requested, and we can't know that.

That said, we're aiming for the 1200-1500 tests per day range for our labs. We think if other labs like ours achieve that same capacity test turn-around should drop down to the 2 day range.

It's a relatively complex test, and same day isn't feasible in our setup. We have to decontaminate each individual sample, aliquot into our testing plates in batches of 96, extract RNA, perform an RT-qPCR test, and generate a report.
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agforlife97
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In reply to eidetic78 • 10:50a, 3/19/20
AG
eidetic78 said:
agforlife97 said:
The whole point of the article is that if the death rate is 0.05% instead of something closer to 1%, we've way overreacted and crashed the economy in order to save the lives of a few thousand people with a life expectancy of less than 10 years anyway. And we basically have no idea what the actual background infection rate is so we just don't know. His recommendation that we randomly sample test the population to estimate the background infection rate is the best idea I've seen and I can't believe no one else is talking about that.
As the director of a testing facility, I can tell you that testing the general population is ALL that we're talking about.

Specifically sample collection logistics. Can't send a huge rush of the public to clinics or hospitals for sampling. Also can't cause massive gatherings of people seeking to be tested, since that would be self-defeating. Also can't expose the person doing the sampling directly to the person being sampled because we don't have sufficient PPE to change after every person.

We're setting up some drive-through type collection points to help our workers keep apart from those being tested by leaving them in their cars. It's not something we've experienced before.

Just because we're not streaming our meetings doesn't mean they aren't happening or that we're all idiots and everyone else knows best.

There are two sides of the testing problem right now:
- Availability of reagents (mostly overcome this problem now over the past week)
- Availability of properly accredited labs to deal with the massive influx of tests (we're all actively working to retool to help process this specific sample type)

Right now tests are being turned around in 4/5/6 days, which is too slow. We're bringing new labs and personnel online as the numbers of samples needing testing are rapidly growing, so it's been a stalemate the past couple of weeks. We're hoping to start gaining ground and lower that turn-around.



Great to hear. Godspeed man.
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JDCAG (NOT Colin)
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In reply to Matt Hooper • 10:57a, 3/19/20
AG
I think the big problem is that neither the cost, nor the benefit can be remotely predicted with any level of accuracy. When the "this is ridiculous" crowd speaks, they minimize the impact of the many of the worst case models (quote low end deaths, high end economic impact), but when the "save lives at all cost" speak, they minimize the impact of economic impacts (high end death count, low end economic). Both sides pretend the other can't do math, despite the fact that there are people far smarter than 99.99% of this board at this stuff in both camps.

Ultimately, there are a lot "ifs" in either route, and since this is America, the one thing we can be sure of is that both sides will blame the other if they end up being wrong.
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JDCAG (NOT Colin)
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In reply to agforlife97 • 10:59a, 3/19/20
AG
agforlife97 said:
eidetic78 said:
agforlife97 said:
The whole point of the article is that if the death rate is 0.05% instead of something closer to 1%, we've way overreacted and crashed the economy in order to save the lives of a few thousand people with a life expectancy of less than 10 years anyway. And we basically have no idea what the actual background infection rate is so we just don't know. His recommendation that we randomly sample test the population to estimate the background infection rate is the best idea I've seen and I can't believe no one else is talking about that.
As the director of a testing facility, I can tell you that testing the general population is ALL that we're talking about.

Specifically sample collection logistics. Can't send a huge rush of the public to clinics or hospitals for sampling. Also can't cause massive gatherings of people seeking to be tested, since that would be self-defeating. Also can't expose the person doing the sampling directly to the person being sampled because we don't have sufficient PPE to change after every person.

We're setting up some drive-through type collection points to help our workers keep apart from those being tested by leaving them in their cars. It's not something we've experienced before.

Just because we're not streaming our meetings doesn't mean they aren't happening or that we're all idiots and everyone else knows best.

There are two sides of the testing problem right now:
- Availability of reagents (mostly overcome this problem now over the past week)
- Availability of properly accredited labs to deal with the massive influx of tests (we're all actively working to retool to help process this specific sample type)

Right now tests are being turned around in 4/5/6 days, which is too slow. We're bringing new labs and personnel online as the numbers of samples needing testing are rapidly growing, so it's been a stalemate the past couple of weeks. We're hoping to start gaining ground and lower that turn-around.



Great to hear. Godspeed man.
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