Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Coronavirus: The Plague of The 21st Century?

Obviously a friend of Trump's stands to make money off of the test that costs 10 times more.

The $1 dollar test in 15 minutes would be a huge game changer. That one could catch asymptomatic cases before the infected person spread it to anyone else. A test you have to send to a lab can't. Knowing you are infectious two days later is moronic. And asymptomatic people would probably never take it, so it continues to spread.

I don't understand why the FDA doesn't waive the lab requirement just like a home pregnancy test. Maybe we need the dicktater-in-chief to get involved. If he wants all the kids back in school, that's what does it.

they are not waiving the requirement because there is no money in it for anybody. If Trump really does go down then I sincerely hope that they investigate just how he is getting his taste from all these money making efforts of his. That is the only thing that makes any sense. Trump, not unlike most mobsters, ALWAYS take a little taste. Its just what they do and have done for a very long time.

Its really pretty interesting. This is the "Yale" test, the other is the "Harvard" test. One can only wonder and hope. The at home one is the one that is the game changer. Its been pretty clear, from the beginning, that Trump is not a big fan of anything that doesn't make money for somebody. Hopefully there will be enough pressure to get the Harvard test. I wonder what would happen if somebody just went ahead and manufactured them anyway claiming that they thought it was alright. Get a few million of them in public hands and, I think, it would be a really serious mistake to withdraw them. The lives saved would justify that.

(I know - not gonna happen....)

It's an FDA power play: They say that any test that can affect people's lives has to be performed in a certified lab by certified techs. (But home pregnancy tests don't affect people's lives?)

This is reasonable for diagnostic tests, like the PCR SARS-COV2 test. But the lower sensitivity test strips should be considered a public health tool, and FDA should create another certification strategy for them: So they can be verified as able to detect the ability to infect others reliably. That way, we don't get flooded with a bunch of worthless strips or totally fake strips.

We also need a change so the viral load value gets reported to doctors and public health when somebody does take a PCR or other high-sensitivity test. The labs actually know this right now! They are just forbidden to report it, but it would be a very valuable tool for doctors, public health tracers, and patients. Most PCR tests are performed on the down side of viral load, when people are not contagious anymore. It's crazy to hide the progress of an infection. Maybe even criminal.

The FDA has actually been doing stranger things than those they have been doing for a long time. My own thought is that they do it to make themselves more necessary which, in turn, means that they can increase their bureaucracy which is a known bureaucratic thing. I think it goes something like the more bureaucratic underlings you have the more important you are.

Very good news from papers just published out of Washington state: They tested everybody going on a fishing boat before they left port, and found no active infections and three with antibodies to SARS-COV2. Apparently, somebody was exposed because most of them (over 100) caught it. They had to end the fishing trip prematurely because one person needed to go to the hospital. They tested them, quarantined as needed, and then tested some more. Most all of the infected did develop antibodies or activated T-cells. The very good news: The three who had antibodies before they left did NOT catch it again, even in that highly infective situation.

This is the first proof in humans that antibodies = immunity. It means that most (if not all) the vaccines will work.

That's certainly good news for Trump! Stock market is soaring and the vaccine will be ready any day! Democratic convention got its lowest ratings ever!

I bet he's getting tired of all this winning.

The only people getting vaccine before the election are some Phase III volunteers? in Russia.

I think reopening schools is going to be such a fiasco, that the economy will still be in a shambles.

I suspect that Brasil is hosting a number of phase 3 vaccine operations. I just checked. China is setting up for testing their vaccine as well as the UK and the United States. I am not sure when they will start to be getting results but I expect we will be hearing something in the next couple of months.

As far as I can tell most universities are testing every student coming in and they are finding quite a few positives and, I think, university football just isn't going to happen.

As far as grades 1 through 12 go most of the Democratic states, and some Republican as well, are just not buying the in class stuff and sticking with the internet. I also have noticed a lowering of whines about education over the internet. I suspect they are getting better at it over time. Where they have sent in the kids its been an ongoing disaster. The problem is that they are simply not talking a whole lot about the long haulers (I think I will post some about that one). Anyway, the results is stuff like parents saying; "Well, my child got it and it was no more than having a cold or the flue". After a few months that is going to go away. Its just plain strange. They are told, over and over, that Covid-19 is not a good thing but they just are not listening. Before this is over there is going to be a LOT of regret and guilt.

Broadcast ratings. What were the online ratings? I’ve been watching on the NYT website to get the whole thing instead of the cut up mess you get on cable/network TV. How many others are watching online for similar or other reasons?