And Texas Caves In

The problem is the only way for an essential business to know if an employee is sick is to check for fever when they show up for work; at that point they have likely (based upon small published medical/scientific studies) been spreading the virus for 1-2 days.

westernrvparkowner wrote:
A common theme is we need more and more and more testing. Could someone please explain exactly what that will accomplish? ...snip.....

Better that we stick our heads in the sand than attempt to quantify the disease? Better that we don't even attempt to know the extent the virus has attacked us? "It will all be gone in April if we just ignore it". Two weeks left. Back to work. ándale! ándale!

This situation with several meat plants will be an interesting case study. They determined that they were essential and continued to produce, which was the correct call in my opinion.

My company has many products that are essential, and we have continued to produce under strict internal guidelines for social distancing, cleaning and PPE. We had one case about three weeks ago with zero known additional cases. Those who can support production from home have done so but out of about 900 workers at this particular plant about 650 are showing up on a daily basis.

It will be interesting to find out if the meat packaging plants had similar restrictions, if they went about with business as usual or something in between. We may never know for sure, as they may not be completely honest with what policies they did or did not put into place.

99%.

The hide under your bed people talk like 99% of the people who get Corona die. That's completely backwards. 99% survive. The other 1%, for the most part, were sick already. Corona may improve society. We'll lose a lot of people who are consuming valuable health services and keep the ones who are healthy and can produce. If you didn't take care of your health you should be very afraid, but that's your fault.

Society can't stay shut down for long. No matter what the liberals say, it can't. People have to work. They have to pay rent. They have to eat. Things will open back up with more face masks and more distance and maybe no lap dances, although I'm willing to take that risk.

westernrvparkowner wrote:


"The only time I see an advantage, other than to the statisticians, is if you test positive for the active virus and you have no other symptoms. Then you could quarantine yourself until you are no longer a silent carrier. But what are the odds of identifying that silent carrier?"

I can't tell what the odds would be to find that carrier with testing. But without testing, the odds of finding him are zero.
And without the testing, how can anybody know the risk? You test only the sickest at hospital, a high percentage of positives doesn't tell much. Testing the general population? You get useful info.
I think health care workers should be sampled every shift. Because of working with sick they have high probability of exposure. And if they have/not sick/will spread.
The store workers, and others should be tested every few days. If positive, stay home, with pay, until clear.
The US has a problem most of the world does not have when it comes to controlling this; Example, Mar 10, working as election judge. I packed alcohol and paper towels in lunch bag with plans to wipe pens and tables occasionally thru the day. Knew it would not be 100%, but thought might kill some, maybe just cold/flu. I was told by judges of the other party I could not do when any voters could see, because might influence the vote. Did any virus spread because I didn't wipe? Don't know, no testing.

westernrvparkowner wrote:
A common theme is we need more and more and more testing. Could someone please explain exactly what that will accomplish? A test doesn't cure anyone.

Someone presents to a clinic or hospital showing symptoms of Covid-19. They are tested and results come back in <24hrs. If that patient is positive they are put into quarantine. Everyone who was in contact with this infected patient over the previous 48-72hrs are also tested thereby tracing where the infection has and has not spread. Those who test positive are quarantined. This plus social distancing significantly reduces community spreading of the virus.

We can’t use this process if there isn’t enough tests, if it takes days to weeks to get test results (currently 4-7days to get results from a 6hr test), and there isn’t the manpower (or technology) to perform contact tracing.

NJRVer wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:
A common theme is we need more and more and more testing. Could someone please explain exactly what that will accomplish? A test doesn't cure anyone. The only time I see an advantage, other than to the statisticians, is if you test positive for the active virus and you have no other symptoms. Then you could quarantine yourself until you are no longer a silent carrier. But what are the odds of identifying that silent carrier? Currently only one out of over 500 people in the US have been diagnosed with COVID. That would mean you have to go through a lot of haystacks to find the needles.
Testing negative would mean almost nothing. It wouldn't prevent you from future infections. It wouldn't make you less at risk doing anything involving contact with others since you could become infected at any time. Even the momentary relief a person might feel at knowing they are not sick would quickly be extinguished by the knowledge they are just a vulnerable going forward as they were before they were tested.
If you have an antibody test and test positive, you probably (though the experts say it isn't a guarantee) have some immunity. While that would give you, as an individual, some comfort I don't see where it is even within the realm of possibility that we create some kind of virus passport and those people become a higher class of citizen able to do things the rest of us are not. If that actually came to pass, people would try to become infected, hoping to recover and gain that preferred status.
So unless the goal is create a statistical cover saying the virus is not nearly as dangerous as was thought, testing on a massive scale will not lead us to a much safer environment. It appears to me that calling for widespread testing before action can be taken to open up the economy is a way for the politicians and other decision makers to look and sound like they are doing something and give themselves leverage to delay the inevitable relaxation of restrictions.

You open things back up with non-sick people.
Sick people stay home.
When they get better then they go back to work.

So someone had a test two weeks ago and were negative. Means absolutely nothing today. Heck, the entire world was negative four months ago.
And again, do you have to have a health certificate to go to work? If you do, why stop at COVID? Make the workplace even safer with tests for all communicable diseases, privacy be darned. It would be nice to know if the receptionist has Herpes or another STD. In that case, it might help the business cut down of Sexual Harassment complanints.

westernrvparkowner wrote:
Testing negative would mean almost nothing. It wouldn't prevent you from future infections.

Yes, the current reports from South Korea seem unpromising for the herd immunity hope. If we actually can catch it over and over and continue to spread it while we have it, a bunch of us are going to be sick. Plus it's no sure thing that they can develop a vaccine that works, even given a couple of years. This may be the population curb we've been needing!

westernrvparkowner wrote:
A common theme is we need more and more and more testing. Could someone please explain exactly what that will accomplish? A test doesn't cure anyone. The only time I see an advantage, other than to the statisticians, is if you test positive for the active virus and you have no other symptoms. Then you could quarantine yourself until you are no longer a silent carrier. But what are the odds of identifying that silent carrier? Currently only one out of over 500 people in the US have been diagnosed with COVID. That would mean you have to go through a lot of haystacks to find the needles.
Testing negative would mean almost nothing. It wouldn't prevent you from future infections. It wouldn't make you less at risk doing anything involving contact with others since you could become infected at any time. Even the momentary relief a person might feel at knowing they are not sick would quickly be extinguished by the knowledge they are just a vulnerable going forward as they were before they were tested.
If you have an antibody test and test positive, you probably (though the experts say it isn't a guarantee) have some immunity. While that would give you, as an individual, some comfort I don't see where it is even within the realm of possibility that we create some kind of virus passport and those people become a higher class of citizen able to do things the rest of us are not. If that actually came to pass, people would try to become infected, hoping to recover and gain that preferred status.
So unless the goal is create a statistical cover saying the virus is not nearly as dangerous as was thought, testing on a massive scale will not lead us to a much safer environment. It appears to me that calling for widespread testing before action can be taken to open up the economy is a way for the politicians and other decision makers to look and sound like they are doing something and give themselves leverage to delay the inevitable relaxation of restrictions.

You open things back up with non-sick people.
Sick people stay home.
When they get better then they go back to work.

A common theme is we need more and more and more testing. Could someone please explain exactly what that will accomplish? A test doesn't cure anyone. The only time I see an advantage, other than to the statisticians, is if you test positive for the active virus and you have no other symptoms. Then you could quarantine yourself until you are no longer a silent carrier. But what are the odds of identifying that silent carrier? Currently only one out of over 500 people in the US have been diagnosed with COVID. That would mean you have to go through a lot of haystacks to find the needles.
Testing negative would mean almost nothing. It wouldn't prevent you from future infections. It wouldn't make you less at risk doing anything involving contact with others since you could become infected at any time. Even the momentary relief a person might feel at knowing they are not sick would quickly be extinguished by the knowledge they are just a vulnerable going forward as they were before they were tested.
If you have an antibody test and test positive, you probably (though the experts say it isn't a guarantee) have some immunity. While that would give you, as an individual, some comfort I don't see where it is even within the realm of possibility that we create some kind of virus passport and those people become a higher class of citizen able to do things the rest of us are not. If that actually came to pass, people would try to become infected, hoping to recover and gain that preferred status.
So unless the goal is create a statistical cover saying the virus is not nearly as dangerous as was thought, testing on a massive scale will not lead us to a much safer environment. It appears to me that calling for widespread testing before action can be taken to open up the economy is a way for the politicians and other decision makers to look and sound like they are doing something and give themselves leverage to delay the inevitable relaxation of restrictions.