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Comment by dsjoerg | Hacker News Reader

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dsjoerg·

Subhead is better than headline: "There may be more targeted ways to beat the pandemic."

Thought-provoking piece.

And if we had much more available testing, what it proposes could be a smart way to go.

Until we have much more available testing, it's a pipe dream.

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Exactly. With mass testing options, we would be one solid plan away from getting back to some semblance of normal life. A combo of taking temp and testing those with fever, and the quarantining the sick, we could be confident in being in public again. I know this is critical but how long will we need to isolate if we don’t get medical intervention? Can our economy survive this kind of shut down for more than a few weeks?

Edit to say I’m all for flattening the curve, and I’m not a denier. But there are trade offs going on here. We aren’t rich enough to ride this out for several months without permanent systemic damage. I think tough questions are warranted

> A combo of taking temp and testing those with fever,

You can have, and spread, covid-19 for several days before you develop a temperature.

Well I’m hearing most people are going to get it anyway. With tests we can slow it down. We’re going to have to accept some risk though aren’t we? We can’t really afford to shut the whole economy down for several months. And if you look at Italy it doesn’t appear to working that well anyway.

At least with testing we can catch a large chunk of the asymptomatic spreaders and get control of this thing. But in a few weeks when this fist wave passes, we’re gonna all have to learn to mitigate risk with good hygiene and accept we may get it. Testing is our only hope to returning to normal life before we totally crush our economy.

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