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Comment by Gene_Parmesan | Hacker News Reader

Given the long incubation period, as well as the fact that many people who are carriers are completely asymptomatic, blanket testing has been tentatively shown to be an effective way to halt the spread of the virus. See: the whole of South Korea's approach, as well as https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-...

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The tests have an approx 20% false negative rate.

You test someone who has symptoms. The test returns negative. What do you tell them to do, given that you know the false negative rate?

This doctor says it better than me.

https://twitter.com/keirshiels/status/1241042696560619523?s=...

You tell them the same thing regardless of the outcome of the test.

The 80% of the time it returns positive, you tell the epidemiologist, and they prevent a few further infections by investigating close personal contacts.

My point wasn’t that fewer than possible should be tested, my point was that given the constraints (staff, equipment, time) it’s best to test people that it makes a difference for, such as those who must be in contact with people - in healthcare.

If you could test everyone with symptoms (or everyone full stop) then go for it. That’s not possible though.

> That’s not possible though

With less foot-dragging it can be. Germany tests 20,000 people a day, Korea tests 15,000 a day, the US (4-6x more populous) only test a few thousand...

>blanket testing has been tentatively shown to be an effective way to halt the spread of the virus.

Testing does not halt the virus. A test is just an indicator to see if you have it or not. Even if you could test for Corona as easily as you can for drunk driving, it'd still do us no good if you don't actually take some concrete steps to halt the virus.

If you have mild symptoms, you don't need a test. You need to stay the fuck home. No symptoms? Avoid going out if you don't need to.

I saw a paper that said 80% of positive tests in a Chinese population sample of people without symptoms were false positives. Is there some reason that wouldn't happen anywhere else?

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