I have heard many people say that at this moment—January 2022—testing will save us. They cite success stories like the National Basketball Association’s bubble (of 2020) to show what testing can accomplish. Unfortunately, here are 9 considerations that they are missing when it comes to mass testing.
This is why I’ve stopped wearing a mask, unless asked by whatever establishment I’m in. They are such a strong and emotive visual reminder of the panic, and we can’t move on until we start to see them go away permanently.
10) Bayes Theorum ensures this can’t possibly work. Even with extremely high sensitivity and specificity this would collapse.
11) Poor ROI. How many tests does each person need to use per day to constantly check if they are sick? 2? 3? 5?
Suppose it’s 3 tests, merely testing the people who should be in school each week is closing in on 40 billion per month.
I remember thinking how many better things we could get for the 25 billion Trump wanted for the wall back in 2017.
In less than a year of testing children at that rate we could pay off the student loan debt. And that’s at the lower end of ways to effectively spend that kind of money.
Anxiety is high, indeed. VP what are your projections for life in a year or two? I used to think this was a dual pandemic track: vaccinated/natural immunity vs unvaccinated and unexposed. But now with reduced vaccine benefit and unclear pharmacological agents in immediate future I am thinking that another arm is "children", "young adults", "elderly" with further partitioning for risk factors. It seems that we should be heading for life as it was pre Covid for healthy individuals under, say, 65 years of age without co-morbidities, but maybe the elderly, especially with underlying health issues, may be remaining in the need to wear N95's when grocery shopping or going to Costco, to reduce their risk of impending "dates with the virus". But that is unsustainable given our predilection as social beings to want to be apart of gatherings, especially friends and family. So, what will life look like if highly infectious variants continue to reappear for the "65 plus club" in your mind? I see it as a continued sequestration of those who intend to live life as it was v. others who are anxious, maybe neurotic, hiding outdoors with an N95. Will our Public Health messaging help to be more on target with a reasonable pathway forward and at the same time will this Agency get its act together to have a better ability to act more strategically correct with out next societal outbreak or other various insult?
Thank you for this. Blanket shot gun testing is not the answer, it is creating false security. This preprint is really interesting on how discordant antigen tests are from PCR test (with a Ct of 30 as the cut off) during omicron. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.04.22268770v1.full.pdf
People do not know how to use these tests, unlike the NBA etc, and we are only beginning to learn how to recommend their use. But a boat load of money is being spent on them and their results may mislead people.
I am dealing with this now while attending a family funeral that is bringing together 9 households. Some are testing regularly. Two tested + using PCR due to symptoms, contacts began testing with the antigen test immediately, no knowledge of incubation periods or the discordance seen in the first 2-3 days. Our public health bureaucrats are failing to educate. It’s become a real mess.
I've got my home test on hand. I plan to use it only if feeling ill. If positive I plan a PCP referral to an infusion site with hopes they have antivirals. I understand that asymptomatic testing is likely pointless. But I'm retired with noting to prove to go to work. As I understand it the home tests are only to confirm a Covid positive, pointless if not symptomatic; they deliver far too many false negatives.
What if this device works? I can see THIS being useful as you can be screened right outside a movie theater or restaurant before you go in. (Of course, I'm skeptical that it actually DOES work, but I'm keeping an eye on it because this is one of the few things that might return a bit of normalcy to the world.) https://wtop.com/coronavirus/2022/01/baltimore-company-unveils-technology-to-instantly-detect-covid-19/
Testing in the current form is clearly not going to do anything in the face of Omicron. It is like measuring individual raindrops in the middle of epic flooding. Much like masking, which was somewhat effective against the wild-type, it was pointless once we got to Delta and even sillier, now, against Omicron.
Personally, I think that we "missed our shot" at containing the wild-type with masks and testing in 2020, and so there's still this idea that we should be doing those things because so many people didn't at the beginning. It's become a "virtue signal." Meanwhile, the past two generations of the virus honestly don't care about 6 feet of "social distance" or home-made masks; they hang around in poor ventilation for hours.
Great points VP. In our school district currently there is OUT of control testing...our district has partnered with a lab and offers free testing to any student/family/staff in our district daily at the district office from like 8am-3pm....the lines are long. I ask myself constantly...why? Why bother...especially for a kid? Specifically for those parents with a healthy kid who has a sore throat, etc...is it curiosity?...will the outcome be different if they know the test is + or -?...not likely...will it change the treatment at home that one would typically do for a resp. virus? Nope. What are people gaining from sitting in their car for 3hrs with a kid that doesn't feel well just to "know"? I think we need to move on and personally there are certain people that need to get tested or are more vulnerable....but this is getting ridic. My husband just got over Flu-Rona...he's totally fine. A few days ago my throat started hurting...I'm sure I've had one or the other. Didn't bother testing...its not going to change how I think or how I treat it or my behavior of staying home until I'm 100%. Many people in my area feel "obligated" to get tested...one parent told me when her son threw up one day she "knew she had to get him tested".....why again? Like you have said before and we all know....we all will get Covid/Omicron sooner or later.....I say lets care less about what the stupid test says and do good things for our body proactively pre-virus and treat accordingly when it happens to us or our kids.
“Testing creates anxiety and anchors our mind.”
This is why I’ve stopped wearing a mask, unless asked by whatever establishment I’m in. They are such a strong and emotive visual reminder of the panic, and we can’t move on until we start to see them go away permanently.
10) Bayes Theorum ensures this can’t possibly work. Even with extremely high sensitivity and specificity this would collapse.
11) Poor ROI. How many tests does each person need to use per day to constantly check if they are sick? 2? 3? 5?
Suppose it’s 3 tests, merely testing the people who should be in school each week is closing in on 40 billion per month.
I remember thinking how many better things we could get for the 25 billion Trump wanted for the wall back in 2017.
In less than a year of testing children at that rate we could pay off the student loan debt. And that’s at the lower end of ways to effectively spend that kind of money.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2020/fact-sheet-what-buy-instead-border-wall-updated/
Anxiety is high, indeed. VP what are your projections for life in a year or two? I used to think this was a dual pandemic track: vaccinated/natural immunity vs unvaccinated and unexposed. But now with reduced vaccine benefit and unclear pharmacological agents in immediate future I am thinking that another arm is "children", "young adults", "elderly" with further partitioning for risk factors. It seems that we should be heading for life as it was pre Covid for healthy individuals under, say, 65 years of age without co-morbidities, but maybe the elderly, especially with underlying health issues, may be remaining in the need to wear N95's when grocery shopping or going to Costco, to reduce their risk of impending "dates with the virus". But that is unsustainable given our predilection as social beings to want to be apart of gatherings, especially friends and family. So, what will life look like if highly infectious variants continue to reappear for the "65 plus club" in your mind? I see it as a continued sequestration of those who intend to live life as it was v. others who are anxious, maybe neurotic, hiding outdoors with an N95. Will our Public Health messaging help to be more on target with a reasonable pathway forward and at the same time will this Agency get its act together to have a better ability to act more strategically correct with out next societal outbreak or other various insult?
Thank you for this. Blanket shot gun testing is not the answer, it is creating false security. This preprint is really interesting on how discordant antigen tests are from PCR test (with a Ct of 30 as the cut off) during omicron. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.04.22268770v1.full.pdf
People do not know how to use these tests, unlike the NBA etc, and we are only beginning to learn how to recommend their use. But a boat load of money is being spent on them and their results may mislead people.
I am dealing with this now while attending a family funeral that is bringing together 9 households. Some are testing regularly. Two tested + using PCR due to symptoms, contacts began testing with the antigen test immediately, no knowledge of incubation periods or the discordance seen in the first 2-3 days. Our public health bureaucrats are failing to educate. It’s become a real mess.
I've got my home test on hand. I plan to use it only if feeling ill. If positive I plan a PCP referral to an infusion site with hopes they have antivirals. I understand that asymptomatic testing is likely pointless. But I'm retired with noting to prove to go to work. As I understand it the home tests are only to confirm a Covid positive, pointless if not symptomatic; they deliver far too many false negatives.
What if this device works? I can see THIS being useful as you can be screened right outside a movie theater or restaurant before you go in. (Of course, I'm skeptical that it actually DOES work, but I'm keeping an eye on it because this is one of the few things that might return a bit of normalcy to the world.) https://wtop.com/coronavirus/2022/01/baltimore-company-unveils-technology-to-instantly-detect-covid-19/
Testing in the current form is clearly not going to do anything in the face of Omicron. It is like measuring individual raindrops in the middle of epic flooding. Much like masking, which was somewhat effective against the wild-type, it was pointless once we got to Delta and even sillier, now, against Omicron.
Personally, I think that we "missed our shot" at containing the wild-type with masks and testing in 2020, and so there's still this idea that we should be doing those things because so many people didn't at the beginning. It's become a "virtue signal." Meanwhile, the past two generations of the virus honestly don't care about 6 feet of "social distance" or home-made masks; they hang around in poor ventilation for hours.
Great points VP. In our school district currently there is OUT of control testing...our district has partnered with a lab and offers free testing to any student/family/staff in our district daily at the district office from like 8am-3pm....the lines are long. I ask myself constantly...why? Why bother...especially for a kid? Specifically for those parents with a healthy kid who has a sore throat, etc...is it curiosity?...will the outcome be different if they know the test is + or -?...not likely...will it change the treatment at home that one would typically do for a resp. virus? Nope. What are people gaining from sitting in their car for 3hrs with a kid that doesn't feel well just to "know"? I think we need to move on and personally there are certain people that need to get tested or are more vulnerable....but this is getting ridic. My husband just got over Flu-Rona...he's totally fine. A few days ago my throat started hurting...I'm sure I've had one or the other. Didn't bother testing...its not going to change how I think or how I treat it or my behavior of staying home until I'm 100%. Many people in my area feel "obligated" to get tested...one parent told me when her son threw up one day she "knew she had to get him tested".....why again? Like you have said before and we all know....we all will get Covid/Omicron sooner or later.....I say lets care less about what the stupid test says and do good things for our body proactively pre-virus and treat accordingly when it happens to us or our kids.
This is true and has been since March 2020 in most places