Forum Replies Created
-
Do we have any logic-based-guesses on when the Virus is really gonna get going in the USA ? How soon before it gets rolling? Do we know?
w
vIt’s hard to get good estimates because we aren’t doing enough testing. It could be rolling right now. We could be a couple weeks away from the peak. It’s hard to say. This disease has an estimated R0 of about 2.5 to 3.2, meaning one person with the disease infects between 2.5 and 3.2 others. Compare that with the seasonal flu which has an R0 of between 1 and 2. That means when COVID-19 begins rolling, it could really roll.
Btw, we now have 3 positive patients in our small community hospital. That’s 3 positives in about 80 tests which doesn’t sound terrible, but 2 of those positives were in the last 10 tests. Shit might be about to get real.
Testing is crucial. It’s why South Korea is testing so much.
It tells medical professionals how many are actually infected. That lets planners know how based on symptom progression what the future demand will be on the system and gives real data about the infection progression.
It also can give data which could indicate viral mutation or hopefully, the end of the virus’ infection period.
As for the testing capacity, 1k per day is through the CDC which doesn’t allow automated testing.
if they allow automated testing and outsourcing to approved labs, that could easily increase 10 fold or more.
The way we are testing doesn’t make sense. Testing every specimen via PCR is overly time-consuming, expensive, and inefficient. Now they are running out of the reagent needed for RNA extraction. Our state lab warned us that testing might slow down as the test materials they need become backordered.
We need a quick and inexpensive EIA screening test that can be performed at every hospital lab. Only specimens that test positive with the screening test would need to be sent to the state lab for confirmatory testing with PCR. This two-tiered approach is similar to the way we test for Lyme disease. Physicians would get their results quicker as the majority of tests would be negative and they would have the results the same day. If the test is positive, the specimen can ship to the state lab the very same day so the PCR turnaround time is no longer than it is now. Actually, it would be much shorter because the state lab would be running fewer specimens.
Interesting. He mentions the desire of many people to return agriculture to the era of the small “family-owned” farm. They think this is more sustainable. It isn’t. Not from a financial standpoint as the author of this article points out and not from an environmental standpoint either.
Actually, 98% of farms, large and small, are already family owned. But the preponderance of family-owned farms is relatively recent. Prior to the middle part of the 20th century most farmland was leased by the farmer from a landowner who was not only paid rent, but also took a share of the profits from whatever crops the land yielded. Very few farmers owned their own land. They lived and died in poverty. Returning to the innocent and wholesome farming practices of yesteryear would mean creating a giant underclass of impoverished sharecroppers and tenant farmers.
