Here are a couple of links to MedCram Youtube videos about a way to improve our public health management of the pandemic. They are specifically about the $1 paper strip saliva tests we could give everybody every day. They are not super sensitive, but they can tell you if you are shedding enough virus to be contagious.

MedCram 98

Interview with Dr Mina

He introduces a concept that might be new to you, which is CT. This is a log number of how much virus you are shedding. When people are at maximum contagion, they shed trillions of times as many viruses as when they are getting better. A CT of 10 would be very dangerous. A CT of 40, not at all. PCR and other high-sensitivity tests will say you are positive down at 40, when there is no chance you could give it to anybody else.

The $1 spit test anybody could run each morning at home detects CTs down to about 30. You are probably not contagious if over 20. So parents could test their kids and decide if they can go to school on a daily basis. If they are CT 31 and getting sick, they would catch it the next day before they have a chance to give it to anybody else.

The PCR tests we are running right now do yield CT numbers, but labs are not allowed to report them! And the average CT for all tests is 37. So this is the tail end of the infection when people are not contagious and quarantine for no reason. We test so little and so late, that it's almost useless. And Dr. Mina thinks it is crazy they can't report the CT number. Because you could see if people were going up or down by repeating the test in a couple of days.

It also eliminates contact tracing, which is next to useless because of all the untested and asymptomatic people, since everybody would just test every morning and self-quarantine if infectious.

This test would be the missing key to opening up the schools again.