The questions to ask for any test:
- What is the false positive rate?
- What is the false negative rate?
- Considering the above, what is the efficacy of mass testing?
(Not saying it is or isn't effective, hard numbers are necessary)
- What is the false positive rate?
- What is the false negative rate?
- Considering the above, what is the efficacy of mass testing?
(Not saying it is or isn't effective, hard numbers are necessary)
> the total positive rate of RT-PCR for throat swab samples was reported to be about 30% to 60% at initial presentation [1]
> In patients with negative RT-PCR results, 75% (308/413) had positive chest CT findings; of 308, 48% were considered as highly likely cases, with 33% as probable cases [2]
> For patients with negative RT-PCR tests, more than 70% had typical CT manifestations. On the one hand, due to the overlap of CT imaging features between COVID-19 and other viral pneumonia, false-positive cases of COVID-19 can be identified on chest CT. Nevertheless, considering the rapidly spreading epidemic of COVID-19, the priority was to identify any suspicious CT case in order to isolate the patients and administer appropriate treatment [3]
> Conclusions: In the close contacts of COVID-19 patients, nearly half or even more of the 'asymptomatic infected individuals' reported in the active nucleic acid test screening might be false positives [4]
[1][2][3]: https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/radiol.2020200642
Other weird thought I had was how does security deal with some lunatic who gets tested positive and runs around infecting others...just walks into some critical hub like a hospital and pat's everyone on the back.
Pick the 10 most likely to develop complications due to age or comorbidity and quarantine the rest so that you don’t get 200 more next week. We’re still in the “stop the bleeding” phase of treatment.
This is the procedure at most hospitals. You give the beds to those who need them, and are most likely to "make good use" of them (= not "waste" them by likely dying anyway; sorry for the atrocious wording)
Isolate those 100 people. Then use whatever methodology[1] your society uses to allocated hospital beds to the ones that will get sick enough to need them.
Just because you test positive doesn't mean you'll need a hospital bed.
Oh, and while you're at it, ban public gatherings, and close schools. Because if 100 people tested positive, there's probably another 200-300 people walking around, infecting others.
[1] First-come-first-serve, youngest-and-healthiest-first, whomever-can-pay-more are the most popular methodologies for this.
It's happened. Criminal charges for assault probably work.