posted by gut
It's a faster, reasonably more accurate test.  It could be significant in reducing risk in some places, but not really significant for the gen pop.

I remember BR saying he had to get tested and it was a 2-5 day wait. At least, something like this could reduce that sort of shit because "it's a pandemic and everyone needs to be safe -- oh, by the way, barricade yourself away from society for most of a week while we check to see if you have this or it's just allergies flaring up again" really is a horribly inefficient way of handling business.

posted by Heretic

I remember BR saying he had to get tested and it was a 2-5 day wait. At least, something like this could reduce that sort of shit because "it's a pandemic and everyone needs to be safe -- oh, by the way, barricade yourself away from society for most of a week while we check to see if you have this or it's just allergies flaring up again" really is a horribly inefficient way of handling business.

It still has to get sent into the lab for processing, so does nothing for that particular bottleneck.  But it's easier and less invasive, safer for the medical professional to administer.  If you were a pro athlete, imagine having to get that nasal swab 3X a week!

And you really need to take it twice to get 99% effective (like the nasal swab is), because 88-94% effectiveness allows for too many false negatives to my liking.

mine came back on day 4

UNC suspending in person classes after 130 students test positive in first week back on campus. 

I don’t fault schools for not wanting to bring students back on. But don’t try and act like business as usual then freak out when this virus continues to spread. 

130 test positive and literally 130 arent sick.....i think we need to just stop the insanity and stop locking down people that arent at danger form this

posted by Spock

130 test positive and literally 130 arent sick.....i think we need to just stop the insanity and stop locking down people that arent at danger form this

Some people are as dense as the anti-maskers.  Who gives a shit if UNC has 130 cases?  If that concerns you, then DON'T GO TO UNC!

It's ass backwards for 80% of the country to stop living their lives to protect 20% who are fully capable of locking themselves down.  Not to say there aren't smart, easy and cheap measures to be taken to help.  But maybe it's better to come up with a plan that EVERYONE is willing to comply with.

And it does make you wonder how much of the stupidity and confusion coming from the media and DC is simply politics in an election year.

posted by friendfromlowry

I don’t fault schools for not wanting to bring students back on. But don’t try and act like business as usual then freak out when this virus continues to spread. 

Been saying the writing is on the wall since they began canceling football.  If you don't think you can keep athletes safe, then there's just no way thousands of students are going to avoid contracting it.

Give them the choice and manage your restrictions accordingly, just like any other community.  At-risk professors should have the option of giving virtual classes.  And, actually, I think what you could do for your typical 3-credit class is have 1/3 come each time, and watch online the other 2 classes per week.

posted by friendfromlowry

UNC suspending in person classes after 130 students test positive in first week back on campus. 

I don’t fault schools for not wanting to bring students back on. But don’t try and act like business as usual then freak out when this virus continues to spread. 

I wonder what the magic number was to not close school.  138 is not acceptable, I guess.  What about 100 or 50 or 25...  What's the magic number they were after.  Pardon me being cynical that I think that magic number was right around 0, as impractical as that is.  

Who cares if the kids who decided to come back to school get sick from it.  They are there by choice and COVID is far from the most dangerous threat facing those students.  This is absolutely insane.  You can literally make the argument that schools should never open again.  We'll never be risk free.  

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

I wonder what the magic number was to not close school.  138 is not acceptable, I guess.  What about 100 or 50 or 25...  What's the magic number they were after.  Pardon me being cynical that I think that magic number was right around 0, as impractical as that is.   

I was thinking the same thing. What was the threshold of acceptable positive tests? Did they not think they were going to hit a number as small as 130 on a college campus?

I also wonder how many were false positives, how many have actual symptoms, etc. 

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

I wonder what the magic number was to not close school.  138 is not acceptable, I guess.  What about 100 or 50 or 25... 

Good question.  Given what we can guess about student behavior, though, 130 in a week would probably blow-up into hundreds, maybe thousands, within a few weeks. 

Probably hard to contact trace college students.  Imagine someone has gone to 5 classes this week - there's 150 students exposed.  Add in the cafeteria and library.  And that's before we start talking about bars and parties.

To your point, this is entirely predictable.  So why did they even bother trying if this was going to be the reaction?

It’s incredibly half-ass and incredibly irritating. 

posted by justincredible

What was the threshold of acceptable positive tests? 

The threshold is obviously 69

posted by MontyBrunswick

The threshold is obviously 69

Health director spoke to our school staff today and said the contract tracing would be to any person that was within 6 feet of the infected individual for 15+ cumulative minutes that day.

posted by Ironman92

Health director spoke to our school staff today and said the contract tracing would be to any person that was within 6 feet of the infected individual for 15+ cumulative minutes that day.

I've seen the 15 minute thing before.  I think it was actually within the context of average time to infect if you are within 6 feet for over 15 minutes, indoors.  Which is a fairly shocking revelation when you realize how that must drop with masks and social distancing...especially given lockdowns are the alternative.

But I did see an update that said, basically, if someone coughed or sneezed on you it could be enough to infect you right then.

I still have no idea what the actually effectiveness of social distancing and masks is.  I definitely don't think it's close to 0.  But it would be really upsetting to find out it was like 90% and most of this was avoidable.  Along those lines, I wonder how much of this is the result of assholes knowing they were exposed, maybe even having symptoms, and not masking up much less quarantining.

The social distance thing is going to be more and more ignored. I’ve already seen three separate instances of huge parties on college campuses and we’re just barely getting back to school. 

Part of me thinks it’s stupid behavior but what did we think was going to happen? Millions of college kids would go back to campus and wear a mask all the time and only go to their dorms, cafeteria, class and that’s it? Come on. And it’s equally lazy for universities to say “Okay we’re bringing students back and they better social distance or else we’ll hit a Covid case number of TBD and shut back down again.” 

I don’t know what the answer is but let’s stop pretending that people are going to social distance forever. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/15/forty-percent-of-us-covid-19-tests-come-back-too-late-to-be-clinically-meaningful-data-show.html

Infuriating that six months in and we still haven’t figured this out. 

Well if masks work so well.......its been a few weeks now on the mandate.  Shouldnt we be at about zero cases?

posted by Spock

Well if masks work so well.......its been a few weeks now on the mandate.  Shouldnt we be at about zero cases?

Damn you're stupid.

posted by queencitybuckeye

Damn you're stupid.

No, No I'm not.

The logic of the mask is to reduce transmission.  If the incubation period of this virus is up to 14 days, then after 14 days of masks we should see a huge drop in cases.  Maybe 75-80% drop.  

It is obvious that masks dont work as well as people think

posted by Spock

No, No I'm not.

The logic of the mask is to reduce transmission.  If the incubation period of this virus is up to 14 days, then after 14 days of masks we should see a huge drop in cases.  Maybe 75-80% drop.  

It is obvious that masks dont work as well as people think

Didn’t you just say on this thread that you don’t wear masks? 

posted by Spock

No, No I'm not.

The logic of the mask is to reduce transmission.  If the incubation period of this virus is up to 14 days, then after 14 days of masks we should see a huge drop in cases.  Maybe 75-80% drop.  

It is obvious that masks dont work as well as people think

IOW, I'll make up a "passing grade" for masks to be considered "working". BTW, cases HAVE gone done in that time frame, just not by some made up number that allows you to pretend something that isn't true is true.

Pretty hilarious for someone who admits he doesn’t wear a mask (and is definitely not the only one) to say that masks don’t work because the virus isn’t 100% gone since masks were mandated. 

posted by justincredible

I was thinking the same thing. What was the threshold of acceptable positive tests? Did they not think they were going to hit a number as small as 130 on a college campus?

I also wonder how many were false positives, how many have actual symptoms, etc. 

I don't think we'll ever know the answer to those last couple of questions.  A college campus is almost an ideal environment to let things just be the way they are - i.e. no one has to be present unless they want to be, and you can assume that those who choose to be there are people who do not have underlying conditions that put them at risk.  

If UNC is representative, I can't see how any schools are going to be able to stay open for more than a few weeks.  

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

A college campus is almost an ideal environment to let things just be the way they are - i.e. no one has to be present unless they want to be...

I'm not so sure this is politics as much as a crystallization, to varying degrees, of the concept of personal choice and responsibility (which is something very different than the tard "muh freedom" criticism) vs. the nanny state.

Now, to varying degrees, that is Right vs. Left.  But the latter really has no back-up plan, no alternative if there isn't an effective vaccine.  How would you ever convince people this is something they have to live with, after spending almost a year convincing them they had to stop living in order to stay living?