Correct Me If I'm Wrong, But This New Coronavirus Test *SHOULD* Be A Gamechanger
A while back, I said I was going to share the "good" news regarding anything and everything Coronavirus. Well... I've only written a blog or two on it because I forgot that I dubbed myself the "Coronavirus Good News Guy" and I'm not really talking about what Clay Travis does (which I've noticed some people call dangerous, but I don't believe that either)
Anyways, we had good news come out recently. VERY good news. The United States FDA has approved a saliva test that can be mass produced and purchased very cheaply:
A saliva-based laboratory diagnostic test developed by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health to determine whether someone is infected with the novel coronavirus has been granted an emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The method, called SalivaDirect, is being further validated as a test for asymptomatic individuals through a program that tests players and staff from the National Basketball Association (NBA). SalivaDirect is simpler, less expensive, and less invasive than the traditional method for such testing, known as nasopharyngeal (NP) swabbing. Results so far have found that SalivaDirect is highly sensitive and yields similar outcomes as NP swabbing.
First off - I implore you to read the articles I'm sharing on your own. I am going to break them down as simply as I can, but I'm also an idiot as everyone knows and I don't want to spread Fake News, so read them yourselves and cast your own judgements.
Now, if I read the article correctly, (and it's entirely plausible that I didn't) this test doesn't tell one whether or not they HAVE the virus, but it tells them whether or not they're contagious. I don't completely get how that works, but if you get a big red "positive" sign that says "YOU'RE FUCKING CONTAGIOUS, STAY THE FUCK INSIDE" then that, my friends, is a complete and total game changer and could help us kinda bridge the gap until a vaccine is developed. Businesses can open up, people could go to sporting events, and more. This should absolutely slash the R value and get us back to normal life. Let's just hope politics don't get in the way of mass producing this and getting the tests into as many Americans' hands as possible.
Oh yeah, and each test only costs about a buck. Not too bad!
Michael mina is a professor of epidemiology at Harvard, where he studies the diagnostic testing of infectious diseases. He has watched, with disgust and disbelief, as the United States has struggled for months to obtain enough tests to fight the coronavirus. Testing is a non-optional problem. Tests permit us to do the most basic task in disease control: Identify the sick, and separate them from the well. When tests are abundant, they can dispel the fear of contagion that has quieted public life. “The only thing that makes a difference in the economy is public health, and the only thing that makes a difference in public health is testing,” Simon Johnson, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, told us. Optimistic timelines suggest that vaccines won’t be widely available, in the hundreds of millions of doses, until May or June.
The wand that will accomplish this feat is a thin paper strip, no longer than a finger. It is a coronavirus test. Mina says that the U.S. should mass-produce these inexpensive and relatively insensitive tests—unlike other methods, they require only a saliva sample—in quantities of tens of millions a day. These tests, which can deliver a result in 15 minutes or less, should then become a ubiquitous part of daily life. Before anyone enters a school or an office, a movie theater or a Walmart, they must take one of these tests. Test negative, and you may enter the public space. Test positive, and you are sent home. In other words: Mina wants to test nearly everyone, nearly every day.
Time to get on your fucking horses paper companies!!! WHO KNEW that paper companies across The States and Globe could potentially be the ones to put us on a path to normalcy before everyone else? Idk not me but who fucking cares. Michael Scott would be proud though. Testing, testing and more testing is the name of the game until there's a vaccine. This article said it perfectly, "the most basic task in disease control is to identify the sick and separate them for the well".
Well if everyone wakes up every day and shits, showers, shaves and swabs their tongue, we would have normal life back and back very quickly. Sick people would know they're sick and/or know they're carrying the virus and stay home and quarantine. People who don't have the virus can't spread it. Boom, I'm watching Luis Robert hit dingers in person and packing bars trying to convince a 6 to come home with me when the lights flick on at 2am. I cannot wait for that to happen again.
Hopefully these paper test kits are in the hands of 300MM+ Americans as soon as possible. I imagine they're kinda like the Ketosis strips you by for $15 from Walmart or CVS. Just little paper things you stick on your tongue, are completely accessible and totally low maintenance. If we get these mass produced and in everyone's hands, we'll have normal life back pretty quickly, or at least as normal a life as we can before a vaccine comes out because the sick should be separated from the healthy completely and totally. Am I wrong ini saying that? I hope not, but I don't think so. Dr. Mina from The Atlantic's article above says that we can almost completely eradicate ourselves from the virus in THREE WEEKS if we get this paper test into the hands of all Americans. PLEASE GOD GET THIS INTO OUR HANDS ASAP!!!
Nevertheless, drop any links to articles that share Coronavirus good news below.