https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/27/politics/robert-obrien-tests-positive-covid/index.html Trump's national security adviser tests positive for Covid-19
A quick, cheap test would help stop COVID-19. So why don't we have one? https://news.yahoo.com/quick-cheap-test-help-stop-133023720.html One major reason COVID-19 is raging out of control across much of the country: the current system of testing catches only a tiny fraction of people while they are contagious. It's now clear as many as 40% of people who contract the coronavirus that causes the disease don't know they have it. Others are contagious a few days before they know they're sick. If more people knew when they were infectious, they would likely stay home and not pass on the virus, slowing or even stopping the outbreak. But the test that's most commonly used to diagnose COVID-19, known as a PCR test, requires analysis in a lab using expensive equipment. With the current surge in cases in Southern and Western states, and a shortage of supplies to run the tests, it routinely takes three to five days – often a week or longer – to return results. More than 750,000 tests are conducted a day in the United States with more than 50,000 new positives nearly every day this month. A growing chorus of scientists argue that while PCR may be a good tool in hospitals to identify precisely how much virus a patient is carrying, it's not enough to stop the pandemic. Instead, people need to know they're contagious when they're contagious, which means they should be tested at least a few times a week. "That could be one of our most important interventions as we come into the fall to prevent large outbreaks from happening," said Stephen Kissler, a research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "I'm on board with (this) thinking," agreed Dr. Benjamin Pinsky, medical director of the clinical virology laboratory at Stanford University. "I think that would be quite useful." Someone who tests negative could visit an aging parent or grandparent without worrying about risking their lives. Teachers could walk into their classrooms with confidence, knowing that no one was harboring the virus. The dental chair would get a little less scary. "We still are not in a circumstance where we have quick turnaround diagnostics the way we need," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health said in Friday webinar. Making tests faster, cheaper, easier A rapid, low-cost diagnostic is technologically feasible and getting closer to reality. At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers are collaborating with a team at 3M to develop and scale such a test. Before the pandemic, MIT chemical engineer Hadley Sikes had developed prototypes to detect malaria, tuberculosis and dengue. If one for COVID-19 works, it could deliver results within 10 minutes. All someone would need to do is add a bodily fluid to a specially made piece of paper that changes color to indicate a positive or negative. No formal training or fancy machines needed. The National Institutes of Health is supporting development of this test and others with money, daily advice and a Shark-Tank-like competition, Sikes said. It's part of a $1.5 billion federal initiative called Radical Acceleration of Diagnostics (or RADx) to speed the pace of diagnostic development. "The world needs as many useful tests as possible as fast as possible," Sikes said. Her team's goal is to develop millions of these pregnancy-test like diagnostics every day, first in the United States and then around the world. Although Sikes said she couldn't commit to a specific timeline, theoretically, tens of millions of these tests could be produced in time for the start of school in September. How much does accuracy matter? An early review of this type of rapid test showed it accurately identified people with COVID-19 only about half the time. But it was the right half, said Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, who has been leading the effort to develop a fast, frequent testing approach. This test might miss some people with low levels of virus in their system, but most of those would already be on the road to recovery, with such low levels they'd unlikely be contagious. Whether you're infectious or not depends on how much virus your body is producing, Sikes said. As someone is falling ill, the virus reproduces incredibly quickly, so they wouldn't stay at low levels for more than a few hours, Mina said on a recent This Week in Virology podcast. Odds are slim the person would test themselves in that exact window and miss a burgeoning infection. And even if the test overlooked a few infected people, another test a few days later when they are more infectious would almost certainly be positive, Mina said. Dave O'Connor, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said tests can miss lots of people with low levels of the virus and yet have a profound impact on transmission. "You'll still have some embers" with a rapid, less accurate test, O'Connor said. But much of the COVID-19 transmission seems to come from super-spreaders – people with extraordinarily high viral loads in a position to infect a lot of other people. "If that's correct, then those are the people you'll need (to identify) to extinguish much of the fire." And a rapid test taken frequently should be able to do that. There would still be a role, O'Connor and others said, for PCR testing, in doctor's offices and hospitals, where a precise diagnosis could be crucial for treatment. Other types of tests are also in use or under development, each with strengths and weaknesses, suitable in different contexts, said Stanford's Pinsky, who is developing another type of test, as is O'Connor. Waiting on regulatory approval A big hang-up now is that regulators haven't yet signed off on this type of rapid test, out of concern for its accuracy. And companies are not pursuing approval for such tests, because they don't think the FDA will give its okay, Mina said. "No one is stepping forward because the message they are receiving clearly from the FDA is that the tests must approach the analytical sensitivity of PCR," he said. "But this should not be the criteria. It neglects how the tests are used." For its part, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it has approved six so-called point of care (POC) tests, which return results quickly – though these cannot be done without a lab or a trained professional. "For accuracy/sensitivity of POC tests, the FDA remains committed to facilitating the availability of reliable, efficient diagnostic tests for COVID-19," according to FDA spokeswoman Nicole Mueller. "The agency considers the level of sensitivity in connection with the potential benefits and potential risks of any diagnostic test when evaluating an (Emergency Use Authorization) request." Daniel Larremore, a co-author with Mina on the paper reviewing the tests, said regulators may be particularly leery of allowing less sensitive tests because of criticism they faced earlier in the pandemic. To try to relieve a logjam of testing in March, the FDA opened the door to more than 200 antibody tests, later recalling authorization for many that proved useless. "There may be some scars there from the past decision," said Larremore, a mathematician and assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder's Biofrontiers Institute. The FDA's rules are well intentioned, said O'Connor, but providing the highest quality of data may not be as important when so many people are sick and suffering. "The enormous burden of cases right here and now and the impact it's going to have on society, especially when schools have a tough time reopening, demands innovation, demands creativity, and demands that the government enable types testing and types of novel approaches that might never be considered under other, non-pandemic situations," he said. Nate Grubaugh, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale University, said it's unlikely enough rapid tests could be made quickly enough to transform the pandemic. And he worries that while each individual test would be low-cost, doing them repeatedly would end up being expensive, creating another disparity between poor and wealthy communities. Fundamentally, "speed and availability of testing need to go up dramatically across the country," said Grubaugh, who is developing a test that relies on saliva instead of sampling from the upper nose as is done with PCR tests. "It'll be a combination of lots of things that get us there."
Whoooaaaa....wait a second. 750k a day?? That's like 5 Million tests a week! But you told us The US tested no more than 1.6mm a week, didn't you? Let's go back and see... Yeah, there is is. From July 5-11, only 1,650,662 people tested a week. So which one of these numbers is correct? Using the source in this article it says during July 5-11, the US tested 4.656mm people! So, how is it your 1.650mm people can be 35% of the number being reported? Wait, let me guess. This is DeSantis' fault, isn't it! That bastard!
It's my opinion that GWB doesn't really care about any facts, but rather twists things to support his/her narrative which is anti-Trump fear. I don't respond to him/her anymore, but I reserve the right to hurl a FALSE when especially egregious.
Yes... this is a gloom & doom worst case article compliments of AP... A troubling pandemic thought: Are THESE the good old days? https://apnews.com/3e601620d7a7c903c0b60924e54ca848 News articles don’t carry Hollywood-style viewer ratings or trigger warnings. Maybe this one should. But consider this: What if THESE are the good old days? Depressing as that might seem after the coronavirus pandemic has claimed well over 630,000 lives worldwide, cost tens of millions their jobs and inflicted untold misery across the planet, it’s entirely possible — increasingly likely, some say — that things will get worse before they get better. Americans in particular have been optimists by nature for the better part of four centuries. But even here, a bleak dystopian vision is emerging in some corners. It’s not pretty. It imagines a not-too-distant future where we’ll all look back with nostalgia at 2020 as a time when most of us had plenty of food and wine, could get many of the goods and services we needed, and could work from home at jobs that still paid us. “This could be as good as it gets, so let’s take pleasure in what we have now,” Katherine Tallman, the CEO of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, an indie cinema in Brookline, Massachusetts, told a recent Zoom roundtable. The pandemic continues to buffet the planet economically, dashing hopes that the worst of the joblessness might be behind us. For 18 consecutive weeks now, more than a million Americans have sought unemployment benefits. New infections have been surging in states like Florida and California that power the economy, threatening people’s health and livelihoods for the foreseeable future. That’s bad. But in online forums and on social media, futurists see the potential for worse. Much worse. Their musings aren’t for the faint of heart. It’s likely that few, if any, of their forecasts will come to pass. This time next year, we may well marvel at how swiftly this existential threat was vanquished. But with the numbers going in the wrong direction, and collective confidence badly shaken, those given to ruinous thoughts can be forgiven for thinking the worst: — What if humanity’s frantic efforts to produce a viable vaccine take longer than envisioned, allowing the virus to kill indiscriminately in the interim? — What if that coincides with a climate calamity that ruins crops and shatters supply chains, stripping supermarket shelves bare of much more than hand sanitizer and toilet paper? — For all our kvetching about masks, could we one day find ourselves having to don hazmat suits just to leave the house? — Is it such a stretch to imagine the economic fallout moving beyond jobs and 401(k)s and wiping out entire industries — setting off a global Great Depression, Part Two? The pandemic is “going to get worse and worse and worse,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters last week. “There will be no return to the old normal for the foreseeable future.” Even President Donald Trump, in a notable departure from his generally insistent stance that the U.S. has the outbreak under control, said the “nasty horrible” virus “will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better.” Margaret Hetherman, a New York City-based writer and futurist, thinks some of our darker pandemic experiences — things like fighting over canned goods and hoarding toilet paper — could foreshadow more dire years ahead if global warming continues unabated. “We’re getting a taste of what could be ahead if we don’t get control of ourselves here. The empty shelves could be just the beginning,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine, but the climate crisis upon us is probably going to render this a piece of cake by comparison.” The Rhode Island village of Hope Valley mirrors the new COVID-19 landscape. More is closed than is open, including the local Grange community center, usually a beehive of activity and human connection. “NO YOGA,” reads a plastic sign out front. “BE HEALTHY BE HAPPY BE SAFE,” it adds, though the hamlet — like thousands of other small towns nationwide — is powerless to help its people accomplish any of those things. For businesses and consumers alike, a new order appears to be dawning — one in which the risk of viral outbreaks increasingly is seen as perpetual, not a one-off. “These times we’re in right now — perilous as they are — will soon be looked back on fondly as ‘the good old days.’ Prepare accordingly,” tweeted Columbia University philosopher Rory Varrato. The website Quartz.com asked experts in business, technology, food, the arts and other sectors how the world will be different in five years because of the coronavirus. Their responses? Largely grim. “My bet is that movie theaters won’t exist,” said one, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Adam Grant. The pandemic has pummeled airlines and the hospitality industry. The American Hotel and Lodging Association warns that more than 8,000 U.S. hotels could close for good as early as September. Restaurants also are imperiled: Without government intervention, Democratic U.S. Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts cautioned this month, “there could be an extinction experience.” Politics, too, cloud the horizon and moods. For some, a dystopian future includes four more years of Trump’s chaotic presidency; for others, the election of Joe Biden and a sudden lurch back to the left. As if all that isn’t enough to bring down the room, people love to share word of random supposed signs of the apocalypse — things that certainly aren’t, like the North American invasion of “murder hornets” and that squirrel in Colorado that was found to have been infected with bubonic plague. That stuff we mostly shrug off. But the future, writ large, is serious business. It is, after all, where we pin our hopes and dreams. If these do turn out to be the good old days, at least there are things for which we legitimately can be thankful: more time and meals together with loved ones; an extended reprieve from soul-sapping commutes; and — for some of us — a greater emotional investment in our children, if only because we’re seeing a lot more of each other. “Even now, we can find joy in a day,” said Hetherman, the futurist. “Even if we’re in a hazmat suit, God help us, we’ll have to find what joy we can.”
So nothing, nada zilch from you, GWB, right? Hope the error goes away without giving it any attention. "I always admit my errors". LOL
Is this guy living in an institution for the bewildered? Who talks like this and is living independently?
In Colombia with a lot of experience training drug dogs the have started training them to sniff for Covid and getting a 95 percent accuracy on healthy vs infected saliva samples. The metabolic processes leave a clear odor for the dogs Others are doing similar. The improvement will be can the dogs detect it before symptoms appear and can they differentiate covid from other respitory illnesses. But looking promising.