inoffensive username said:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
I didn't see this posted before, but it's a great resource updated in real time.
gonemaroon said:
How about the folks walking through demanding to be tested because they are showing symptoms and getting blown off? This is the type of **** that will get Trump booted out - he keeps babbling about rate cuts when folks want safety first.
cone said:
I'm waiting for someone in our government explain how SoKo can test so many people per day and the US cannot
it absolutely seems purposeful
who gives a **** if the false positives are too high
Cassius said:
in 3 months, in 2nd world china, population 1.3 billion, there have been 80k cases...
.006% of the population.
when will this exponential race to infinity kick in that you guys keep referring to?
At China's rate, the US will have 18,000 cases total in a couple of months, which brings us into May, which means temps warm up which helps mitigate the issue.
Suppose we have 5 times as many cases as China - 1st world versus 2nd world, but OK - in the next couple of months, that's a total of 100,000 cases.
cone said:
I'm waiting for someone in our government explain how SoKo can test so many people per day and the US cannot
it absolutely seems purposeful
who gives a **** if the false positives are too high
Pinche Abogado said:
I think it's been accepted that Chinas reported cases are unreliable.
Can't run assays without reagents.StrickAggie06 said:cisgenderedAggie said:flakrat said:
What type of equipment and personnel are needed to perform the tests (re: the post by Abbott about Texas being able to do 125 per day once things are ramped up)?
I'm wondering if this equipment and personnel are mostly located in research universities here in the states and the process of pooling all of those resources in a system like ours might be insanely difficult and time consuming compared to doing the same in a small country like South Korea where (assumption) the facilities and personnel all report to the federal government?
I.e. stop all research and other work you are doing on that equipment and run COVID-19 tests 24x7
- USA Researcher: Da***?
- SK Researcher: Whatever you say, boss!
I don't understand the throughput issues. These are supposed be quantitative RT-PCR assays and the equipment is pretty standard in a modern molecular biology lab. I've never used a machine that couldn't run at least 96 reactions at a time and a run probably doesn't take longer than 3 hrs from setup to results. Assuming their running 5 replicates for positive and negative controls and each test, there should be room for 10-15 tests for each 96 well run.
Every research university in the state probably has at least a dozen machines for this, but the lab space and maintenance might not be up to specs. All short term problems for an emergency.
I was wondering the same thing. In graduate school at A&M, we had a 386 well plate rt-PCR machine. Just by myself, I could run 160-240 tests per day, assuming the same number of replicates you mentioned.
That's one machine, in one lab, run by one person. And the most the entire state of Texas can do is 125 per day? Makes zero sense, even if you consider competing research demand for the machines and labor.
maybe those that are concerned about future pressures on the healthcare system to treat people that are actually sick. or maybe those that are dont desire panic due to inaccurate data?cone said:
I'm waiting for someone in our government explain how SoKo can test so many people per day and the US cannot
it absolutely seems purposeful
who gives a **** if the false positives are too high
nortex97 said:
Exactly, and now the real death rate is something like .1-1 percent (per my link above). So, basically lower than the flu, which essentially kills the elderly/immunocompromised only in 1st world healthcare systems.
Maybe the Chinese were just, gasp, overly-cautious because they didn't know what the heck was going on?