Scholarship table
Uh, no. I got my MD from the Medical College of Wisconsin, class of ‘87. I can’t dunk, but I understand epidemiology and disease management, and can read and understand CDC and WHO guidelines.
https://youtu.be/cZFhjMQrVtshttps://youtu.be/Q4F2oSQ8CRIhttps://youtu.be/qbqQdwvjf7U
I hate doing that; the fact that most here didn’t know about my degree shows that. But I can’t tolerate a know-it-all who claims to understand something like this better than the experts at CDC and WHO, and who talk down to anyone who doesn’t follow his lead...
I'm pretty sure that was a dunk on my sassy attitude. Though, I feel like I got set up pretty hard there. Does this mean that my opinion counts more than mu03eng? I'm just checking so I can dunk on him As I mentioned earlier, you can take my advice with a grain of salt if you want to. I'm certainly not an expert. I, too, understand CDC and WHO guidelines, I just find them to be lacking. I guess in a week or two, we will see if the guidelines were worth a damn or not.Do you mind if I ask you what we should do in the face of this? Follow what the CDC says? The WHO? Do you think they're doing an adequate job?
I think the CDC does an excellent job, because it makes its recommendations based on both hard science and pragmatic considerations like cost/benefit ratios and such. That doesn’t mean they can’t be debated, but IMHO it’s reasonable to consider CDC right until convincingly proven otherwise.And to be sure, they may change their recommendations as this goes on and their knowledge base expands. To me, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are wrong now; it may simply mean they have new data on which to make recommendations.
I agree, but they seem to have been caught with their pants down here. We are at almost a month and a half from patient zero in the US. Hopefully, they've been working to procure essential medical equipment for our HCWs at the very least.
Simple argument against testing: if you are in a demographic group where you will likely have symptoms like a minor flu, and work for a company that already gives paid sick leave, you will recover perfectly well and at lower cost by staying home and doing appropriate self-care.Lower cost, same outcome. Is that straightforward enough?
Are you talking unlimited paid sick leave? I've got PTO, and I would have to use 5 days of that, and then I can get short term disability (a smaller % of my pay) with a dr's recommendation after that. I suspect my benefits are better than most Americans, and I'd still need a Covid-19 test to get to your "lower cost" scenario.
I don’t know how different companies’ benefits work, but yes.One more argument against testing patients at low-risk for a severe outcome: getting a test might require you to go to a doctor’s office or clinic, or maybe even a hospital, where there may be lots of higher risk people (the elderly, and other people at the clinic or hospital for treatment of their high-risk conditions). So the very act of going to get tested might place high-risk populations at higher risk for exposure.
It's officially in Milwaukee nowhttps://www.tmj4.com/news/national/coronavirus/uw-milwaukee-extends-spring-break-prepares-to-suspend-in-person-classes-amid-coronavirus-concerns
South Korea figured this out. They had tents, and drive up testing.
Not officially. A person was tested, that's all they announced.
More importantly here in the US, it’s possible that the restrictions in public health funding by the current administration could prevent extensive drive-through testing on a nationwide basis. Maybe we couldn’t even do it with previous funding levels, as it would require facilities we don’t have, while clinics and hospitals are already there and equipped for testing.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-coronavirus-test-hospitals-20200309-lb54zvss6var7j7p4bfnphg4fe-story.html%3foutputType=ampCT is at least thinking about it.
CT is at least thinking about it.
The state lab in Lowry will open a drive-up facility on Wednesday, Polis said, where people can go to be tested if they have a note from their doctor. And the governor said the state was preparing more safe-testing locations, including the prioritization of putting up a testing facility in the High Country to prevent the spread of the virus in mountain communities that have already seen multiple cases.
Another point regarding testing...Let's say you make this mandatory. Or suggest everyone do it. And everyone who tests positive has to be quarantined 2 weeks (minimum, I'm guessing). As we know, not everyone has paid time off. Or sick leave, even. Or savings to cover day to day/monthly expenses.Think those people are gonna show up for testing knowing they're going to risk their jobs or paychecks? Ya right
As we know, not everyone has paid time off. Or sick leave, even. Or savings to cover day to day/monthly expenses.Think those people are gonna show up for testing knowing they're going to risk their jobs or paychecks? Ya right
One other point about quickly setting up a drive-through system: when you quickly take a process out of its usual environment, you raise the risk for errors. We already know that samples occasionally get mishandled, contaminated or mislabeled in the normal clinic and hospital environment. It is quite possible that a hastily designed drive-through system would increase the error rate. So there’s the cost, but also the quality challenge due to a quick change in logistics.