Questions about testing for the STEM heads in the room:
I understand that one of the problems with the antibody tests is that it is fairly easy to pick up ANY coronavirus, but hard to differentiate if it’s Sars CoV 2. Is this true for the antigen tests that are meant to pick active infection? Would it be possible to design a really rapid coronavirus screener that picks up the presence of ANY coronavirus so fast it might be used for classrooms, transit, hospitals etc? Anyone who tests positive is immediately directed to a proper test center and isolated until the results of the test for Sars CoV 2 come back, hopefully within the same day.
In the beginning of this, I read that 25% of the common colds are caused by Coronaviruses, which would make that kind of screening useless. I have read since that rhino viruses are much more prevalent and the harmless Coronaviruses are in the low single digits.
Just wondering. Maybe someone here can shed light on this.
And yet that’s close to what nations that are reopening their schools are doing. Testing all kids and staff as frequently as twice per week.
We’ve got to decide: are we going to reopen? Or are we’re going to say, nope it’s too much of a bother to do what we need to do to reopen. You can’t have it both ways.
I have posted this before… the one way signs do put me in proximity to more people than necessary when I shop. If I come down Aisle 4 and the next item I need is in empty Aisle 6, I have to inevitably pass three other shoppers on my way up Aisle 5 that I could have avoided had I been able to jump straight to Aisle 6. I agree with having dedicated entries and exits for the purposes of cart disinfecting, but the one way aisles need more studying IMO.
Kind of a moot point since many people, employees included, were ignoring the one way signs. It didn’t bother me, though. Mask compliance was 100% at least.
Commercial real estate – and all those services that support commercial and business centers – and residential real estate for all those workers who wanted to live close to work to avoid long commutes.
This is one reason why economists are so worried about the impact of COVID. Until there is a widely available effective vaccine , it may change EVERYTHING. In ways we may not yet imagine.
Yet again, the word “idiot” does apply to some people. I started a Facebook thread stating that active cases in Maine are up 30% in two weeks and that’s not good. One woman posted, “ANYONE THAT HAS HAD THE FLU SHOT WILL TEST POSITIVE for covid-19.” I asked her for a scientific reference and she named that stupid woman in the plandemic video. Unbelievable. I told her that if it were true, there would be scientific literature backing it up. Sigh. I do worry for our country.
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I do not expect commercial real estate to recover when and if a vaccine is found. Companies have learned employees can and will willingly work from home, and are starting to authorize it regardless of COVID. Rent savings is huge. Young people might still want to gather in an office, but the rest of us will stay home to work. Too bad for cities.
Yes. I can’t believe two months of information, data, endless discussions on TV, social media and sites such as this one – and some supposedly educated people still say this is no worse than a flu.
When I posted about active cases (total cases minus recoveries and deaths) going up 30% in two weeks, one guy said, "It doesn’t look like it from the graph. So I wrote out “506/389 = 1.301.” 30% increase. Geez.
Fed chief Powell said today that “The scope and speed of this downturn are without modern precedent, significantly worse than any recession since World War II”.
And:
“He pointed out that the burden often falls on the most disadvantaged, explaining that a Fed survey set for release on Thursday will show that almost 40 percent of people who were working in February and were members of households making less than $40,000 a year had lost their jobs in March”.
That’s a staggering number… 40% of those from households making less than $40K lost their jobs in March…that number obviously doesn’t include the last 6 weeks, so is in reality higher than the 40%, perhaps significantly so.
I’m not advocating one way or the other for opening up, but struggle to understand how we aren’t headed for a depression. Seems like significant lives will be lost no matter which way we choose.
I think it depends on the nature of your work and your company culture. We had a department Microsoft Teams meeting this morning and to a person we reported that we are desperate to see each other in person again. That said, office space will be greatly reduced going forward and office buildings will be mainly “hoteling” and meeting space. When we go back to our corporate office it will probably be 25% at a time in shifts.
First, many companies have leases and unlike apartment rentals, they can be many years long.
Or they own their buildings and have mortgages so to get out from then they will have to sell to someone.
I know my kids company recently leased even more space in downtown Boston because they were going to expand workforce even more. But they laid off about 1/2 as they went with the 24 month worse case scenario their models projected of economic disruption for their business. They have 5 floors presently in use in Building 1.
First, they aren’t planning on having anyone work in the office for months - my words. CEO’s words were, “a very long time.” But their plan is once they do go back is to move many people from the present office space they are in to the new space. So they will be using a lot more space for a smaller number of employees.
They are a pretty innovating company so I have no doubt they will find a way to make it work.
Meanwhile, since it’s a tech company they had no trouble switching to WFH for all employees at their home office in Boston, their Denver office and the company they own in France. People already had the option of working from home but only did it on rare occasions. But when Boston gets hit with snowstorms they all worked from home those days.
Interesting. This also mentions of the The Cepheid GeneXpert test. The Time article from the former FDA director also mentions its accuracy. @BunsenBurner thoughts?
And then there’s what we’re actually doing, which is: “Everybody decide for themselves whatever they feel like doing.”
I have no strong feelings since my state isn’t very impacted and I don’t have kids in school. Instead I’m genuinely curious how the various Petri dishes of state re-opening experiments will turn out. I seriously, seriously hope places like GA and FL turn out great, but I worry they won’t.
I started to think, wait a minute, if anyone who has had the flu shot tests positive for covid-19, then why are so few people testing positive? And why are the rates of positive tests going down? But then I realized that MaineLonghorn’s correspondent is resistant to any kind of rational thought, so what’s the point.
The difference between the two tests is the core technology used inside the machine. Cepheid figured out how to pack PCR, the complex and highly sensitive process used to amplify DNA (or DNA copied off viral RNA), into a cartridge. The same PCR that is used in highly complex labs like the ones that run the CDC test. The downside is the 30+ minute run time, because PCR requires rapidly heating and cooling the reaction mix and repeating the cycle multiple times until the signal can be read. This takes time. Cepheid has a dozen or so test on the market that use this PCR in a cartridge tech. Not many are probably aware that the same Cepheid tech was (is?) used to screen mail for anthrax at large processing centers for many years. So Cepheid’s tech has been around the block for at least 20 years.
The Abbott/ Alere test ID NOW uses a different process - a so called isothermal amplification that does not require this temperature cycling. The big upside is the speed, but without going into details, this process is considered less reliable. Also, I have no idea who runs the Alere machine at the WH… so maybe a tech error is also a contributing factor, but that is my speculation.
There are articles comparing Cepheid and Alere flu tests that also demonstrate a similar difference in performance… So while ID NOW could be good for surveillance purposes, if what the article says is true, it absolutely cannot be used in settings where accuracy is critical, like assigning patients to Covid or non-Covid birth centers or ICUs in hospitals.
Sorry Cardinal Fang that my words were not clear (enough). The report are saying that “Dr. Facui and the Gates Foundation stand to make large profits from the manufacture of the Covid19 vaccine.” No, I can not provide a link due to my computer problems.
I have no opinion on this. I was asking if anyone else knew anything about the various claims.
