Order your rapid tests from the USPS (US only)
special.usps.com
special.usps.com
In the meantime my children have been sick for a little while, and we got one of them tested and it was negative; however right before they got sick we had interaction with someone who had a positive COVID test shortly thereafter.
I am starting to wonder at the efficacy of the tests and is it that they just can't catch Omnicron as well? Are my kids really just sick with some other random thing despite dozens of people in our social circle getting COVID?
I'm just wondering at this point if there is a reason for the mass testing, because it doesn't really let you know anything except whether or not you have COVID and you'll get better or get worse. I can understand in hospitals or something like that, but in the general population I am failing to understand as it seems Omicron is incredibly virulent, and you can spread before you have symptoms, so what is the end game with the mass testing?
> QuickVue At-Home OTC COVID-19 Test correctly identified 83.5% of positive specimens and 99.2% of negative specimens.
Ever since the vaccines came out and were implemented in full force, I am wondering what the purpose of testing even is. At least in the US, even the most restrictive locales have no intention of shutting down commerce to limit transmission. I do not know anyone who is not treating this coronavirus like any other, or the flu, or a rhino, or whatever other sicknesses normally go around.
My kids' daycare (or local government, not sure which is responsible) has a crazy policy of shutting down a class for 2 weeks if a covid case is detected. But not if any of the kids are sick with RSV/flu/rhino/noro/rota, etc. The daycare has not had any reports of covid for months. I am pretty sure all the parents are simply choosing to not get their kids tested because who can afford to drop their obligations for 2 weeks and also force all the other parents in class to do the same. Every single kid walking through those doors has a snotty nose, and surely at least 1 has had covid 19 over the past few months.
It all seems similar to security theater after 9/11. A lot of effort and expense for little gain so somebody can say they did something.
If I isolated every time I got the sniffles or was more tired than usual I'd be home a lot..
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33015684/
Society's risk tolerances are being very inconsistent right now, and the only reason I can see is for political purposes (i.e. cover your ass).
By the way, I'm not claiming we should be more strict about any of this, but on a personal level I'd rather do my best to not infect others.
I guess what I am getting at is the dichotomy of leaders officially acting if people should test and quarantine and all that jazz, while obviously knowing that those who need to go out and work to put food on the table and funds in the retirement account will continue to do so.
Based on the stats, I would bet all I have on one of those snot nosed kids at my kids' daycare having covid right now. But I am sure many or most of the parents need to work for the cash to meet the mortgage payments or whatever their expected quality of life is.
I do agree there's a lot of hypocrisy and ass-covering going on. Even earlier in the pandemic healthcare workers were discouraged from getting tested so they wouldn't need to stay home from work. I think making tests available prevents at least some unnecessary transmission which is good enough for me.
Which, if daycares were run by the toddlers independently of adult supervision, would be a great point.
I get the initial lockdowns and period of time to figure out this new thing, but at this point in time, I do not see how people's risk profile is any different than what it was before Dec 2019.
You can’t isolate if you don’t know you’re sick.
1. Things such as influenza mostly spread when the person is symptomatic.
2. Something along the lines of 50% of covid infections are from pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic people. Self isolating when you have symptoms is certainly good, but it is by no means the entire picture.There are virtually zero deaths attributable directly to flu by hospitals. The vast majority are imputed by estimated excess deaths.
So even by completely different and unfair metrics, covid is vastly more dangerous. If you went by that standard covid likely has claimed over a million US deaths already, compared to a few tens of thousand for flu.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
On top of that, covid has a significantly higher R0 value, which means you’re much, much more likely to come into contact with it.
That’s how you change your risk calculation: it’s the cost of getting it (probability of death or maiming) times the probability of getting it (community spread level and nasal viral shedding rate). There is no mitigating factor here wrt covid vs flu risk.
Swab throat too during rapid COVID test, Israel's Health Ministry says
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
So what's better, getting your throat spit up your nose, or getting your nose mucus in your throat?
Every time you sniff, you get nose mucous in your throat (what with them being connected and all), and when you sneeze quite a bit of throat mucous will is drawn up along with air. And now remember that your intestines are physically connected to your mouth by only a foot or two of squishy pipe and you'll be wishing for a nice clean robot body.
U.S. diplomats in China were subjected to anal swab tests for Covid-19, a Department of State spokesperson confirmed Thursday, adding that a protest had been lodged with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-diplomats-china-subje...
This won't help us get a handle on asymptomatic cases - to do that, we'd have to be able to test everyone on a frequent and consistent basis.
This program doesn't even cover one test for everyone in my house, let alone weekly or more frequent testing. And aside from this, I have to spend hours looking for any available rapid tests to buy around here, and if/when I have some, I can't afford to use them on randomized or even weekly testing.
When my son tested positive, they refused to let us re-test to see if it may have been a false positive. He's 2 and was completely asymptomatic.
She also thought it would be helpful to know if exposure = any additional immunity down the road, since all of the facts constantly change
There are other possibilities like that she had a cold and the 5th test was a false positive or she had a cold and got covid several days later.
Covid is much more dangerous for the elderly than the young, even vaccinated. The young are so safe that there have been ~250 total covid deaths in the US age 0-4.
Also, there is growing evidence that the lateral flow tests correlate well with being infectious.
Testing reasons:
For lots of staff (medical, school, factories), to avoid unnecessary prophylactic isolations, particularly for people whose work cannot be done remotely. And for the same group of people, testing daily (were we in a competent country with the test manufacturing to support) could significantly reduce community spread. Daily tests are infeasible to do with pcr if for no other reason than the reporting lag.
For visiting high risk people: reasonably reliable, fast indicator of whether you have covid in order to make near realtime decisions about activities to engage in. Like masks, this will reduce community spread.
Anecdotal: I was in my 3rd of 4th day of symptoms before I finally came up positive on antigen (at home and at testing sites; the test appeared to be the exact same). PCR showed it from day 0 but the results lag quite a bit especially right now in the US (it took 7-10 days for me to get the PCR back in early Jan).
If only we had some guidance and solid communication from public health experts that you could conceivably trust..
Like the grandparent, I know several people that have all of the covid symptoms, but tested negative early on. These people just go about their day because they think they have some other cold, then stop testing until their symptoms go away. I would probably do the same.
You drive into a parking lot, they hand you a test, you self-swab and give it back to them.
There is other testing available - this is just the county-provided testing. It’s well run.
The place I use in Austin is $85 for a same day PCR test.
LFDs are decent for telling you if you're infectious _right now_ - they're much worse than PCRs for telling you if you have covid at all.
Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer, do not take medical advice from me. My partner is a biochemist and I regularly chat with a couple of council covid-response officers, and the above is the explanation I've had from them when I've asked.
If you test positive, you're supposed to stay home and isolate so you don't spread COVID.
Tests aren't perfect, since as you said, there seems to be a significant false-negative rate with Omicron, and you can be contagious before you show symptoms, but the tests help prevent people from spreading confirmed cases, and can be helpful to pre-test before you spend time with someone who is at high risk for COVID.
Its not even Omicron. Rapid tests always had something like a 40% false-negative rate or something stupidly high.
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That's why you're supposed to take two tests if you're asymptomatic, to reduce the chances of a false-negative.
Fortunately, the false-positive rate is less than 5% IIRC, and fairly reliable.
EDIT: Sensitivity and Selectivity isn't really false-negatives or false-positives. But for the purposes of this discussion, its probably good enough. Besides, I'm just an ignorant programmer who doesn't know the difference between them.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/12/29/fda-says-rapid-at-ho...
“RADx recently performed preliminary studies evaluating the performance of some antigen tests using patient samples containing live virus, which represents the best way to evaluate true test performance in the short-term. Early data suggests that antigen tests do detect the omicron variant but may have reduced sensitivity,” according to the FDA.
Frankly, going from 60% to 40% doesn't change my viewpoint on rapid tests. Its all "unreliable false negative" to me (I don't know what it is for Omicron, I'm just pulling 40% out of nowhere). But whatever it was, the sensitivty was always so low that you never could rely upon a negative-reading, due to the high chance of false-negatives.
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Rapid tests remain useful, but you _MUST_ always be mindful of their high false negative rate. The fact that their "unreliable stat got even more unreliable" isn't really news, because you shouldn't have been relying upon it anyway.
[0] https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-disease-2019...
[1] (pdf) https://www.fda.gov/media/141570/download
[2] (pdf) https://www.fda.gov/media/142193/download
Ripped straight from https://www.bio-rad.com/en-us/life-science-research/overlay/...
Rapid tests give you a result within 15 minutes. PCR tests you gotta ship to a lab, and wait maybe 2 or 3 days before they report back to you.
I think PCR tests (which nominally take 15 minutes) are the best. But we clearly don't have the infrastructure to support it. Every lab doing PCR tests is going at full throttle and yet we still have this 2 or 3 day delay everywhere.
Meanwhile, at-home rapid tests work immediately. They're way less accurate, but its better to have some degree of testing rather than nothing at all.
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Lets say you have a workforce consisting of 10 people who are sick with COVID19 right now. PCR tests might catch 9/10 of those people. Rapid tests might only catch 6/10.
But removing those 6-people with Rapid tests in your workforce will slow down the spread. 4-people spreading COVID19 in your workplace is better than 10-people spreading COVID19.
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EDIT: More importantly, Rapid tests will catch those 6 people _TODAY_. PCR tests will take ~3 days before they report back, meaning if you're on PCR-tests only, your COVID19 positive people will be around the workforce for 3 days.
If you use both Rapid Tests + PCR tests, you remove those 6 people _TODAY_ from the workforce (meaning 4 people will be spreading COVID19 in your workforce). 3 days later, those 3 other people are removed which is "too late". The Rapid test was in fact more useful.
PCR tests are better for contact tracing, due to their higher reliability. If someone tests positive with PCR tests, you trace their contacts and tell _THOSE_ people to get PCR tests and/or rapid tests, in an attempt to "get ahead" of the disease. (IE: those 3 people who weren't caught by rapid tests were in contact with 15 people total. You now tell those 15 people to rapid test + PCR test).
Rapid tests _always_ had bad sensitivity. Its gotten worse for Omicron, but going from "bad" to "worse" isn't really a big deal, because you never should have been relying upon negative test results anyway.
That's my point. The "use" of rapid tests was their "rapid" nature, coming back with a result in 15 minutes is way better than waiting for 3 days. The PCR is needed if you want to truly rely upon the result (well, kinda sorta. PCR got better sensitivity / specificity but its still not perfect).
The rapid tests are still quite useful because a positive test is very reliable and saves you several days of waiting for PCR results.
Perhaps the test results should be labeled "Yes, you have covid", and "meh, not sure".
PCR tests will report COVID infections that are way below the threshold of transmissibility, and they'll keep reporting positive results long after the infected person is no longer contagious.
"Am I contagious?" is arguably a more useful question to answer than, "Do I have any detectable amount of COVID in my body, at all, using the best laboratory testing processes available?"
[1] https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/antigen-tests...
[1] https://www-umcutrecht-nl.translate.goog/nieuws/corona-zelft...
If you are in the US, flu is a possibility. Unlike 2020-21, the 2021-22 flu season is coming on strong: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm
My understanding is:
1) Existing rapid tests are not as sensitive to Omicron as previous variants.
2) Negative results on rapid tests are unreliable, especially single negatives. They're more reliable when taken in series, and the instructions for the ones tell you to take two tests, 3 days apart. However, their positive results are very reliable, so if only 75% of the positive people who take one actually test positive, you've still successfully detected 75% of those infections.
PCR tests are far better at detecting infections early.
My bet is that it's probably using the same infrastructure and is built by the US Digital Service (https://www.usds.gov/) and/or 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov/)
I mean, for what it's worth, this gets high marks from me for ease of use and seems to be consistent with just about every advice you see surface here about getting your users through an ordering funnel. Of course the fact that the cost is 0 here makes it a simpler problem for them, but given that it is a gov't project I could have envisioned a lot, lot worse.
USPS does have ways to validate your address, for example when you set up mail forwarding or the daily digest thing.
https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/address-informa...
USPS gets points for practicality and execution, but is yet another service that performs zero email address verification and ends up with idiots that don't know their own email sending me their info.
It's a little problematic if, say, four roommates share an address.
The USPS also enjoys a monopoly on mailbox deliveries, as well as price protections, in the form of a floor imposed on potential competitors. This doesn't seem particularly admirable.
Because other companies can simply cut the benefits, USPS cannot.
The best explainer I've seen is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/04/14/post-office-p...
> ALL companies are required to fund any pension promises they make to their employees. (...) NONE of them are permitted to take a “pay as you go” approach but must contribute to a pension fund an amount equivalent to what a worker has accrued that year in benefit promises, regardless of how far into the future that worker will be retiring, and must make up for any shortfalls due to asset losses or other reasons. The USPS and private sector companies use the same general actuarial principles to do so, though there are differences in assumptions, particulars of the calculations, etc.
> What is distinctive about the USPS is that, a a result of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), they are also required to pre-fund their retiree medical promises. However, what is also distinctive is that any private-sector company may simply cancel its retiree medical benefits at any time; the funding requirement for the USPS exists because only an act of Congress would enable them to cut these benefits.
> However, even here, again, all companies which promise retiree medical benefits must account for them in their financial reporting even if they don’t prefund.
As well as this line when discussing the USPS Fairness Act, which would eliminate the pre-funding requirement.
https://about.usps.com/news/delivers-facts/usps-delivers-the... [PDF Warning]
> passage of the bill will not reduce our underlying retiree health benefits liability, nor improve our cash flow or long-term financial position.
It’s a vital service like mass transit or roads.
And that's not even touching on the point that looking at the postal service as a private business is completely asinine. No one looks at the military or schools as a private business that needs to make a profit.
Anecdotally, I would be among the first in line to dump them, just as I would choose to dump every government monopoly if I had such a choice (e.g. fire, police, etc.). You know, the way things were back when citizens had a modicum of actual freedom, rather than the constant gaslighting that attempts to redefine our modern cultural slavery as "freedom".
Everything the government touches turns to the worst possible kind of shit.
Not really. Vaccines were deployed via centralized health centers.
> pressing private companies into service
I am talking about a distribution network. Lets go back to that time in March 2020 when the US started realizing COVID was a real thing and everyone went into lockdown. Imagine the next time, where we are able to mass manufacture a vaccine pill within the matter 1-2 weeks. Having the USPS distribution system could be invaluable here. We certainly wouldn't be in our third year of COVID-related disruptions as we are now.
Okay, this is not particularly novel, and the implied comparison to scaling digital services is flawed.
"If this were a startup or private company we would be in awe of their track record."
Again, if a startup operated like USPS they would fold real quick. The USPS has continuously received public money to remain in operation. They are not innovative. The only area where they are expanding is in parcel delivery, and they often turn it over to other partners to do the last-mile pickup and delivery.
However, startups can aspire to the ubiquity of USPS. In many towns, the Post Office is the only happening place and fosters community, and occupies an important place in the hearts of people who rely on it in a big way. Many private logistics providers such as UPS and FedEx do not serve these areas because it's uneconomical for them, and the Post Office is the only logistics provider. For this reason, the USPS deserves taxpayer support.
I really, really don't want to see the post office innovate on the timescales of startups. IMO "more reliable" > "more features" for this kind of work. I don't want someone thinking of how to put (more) ads on my mail, I just want my mail.
The 18F group is the US Government's "elite" IT-team, including web programming.
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If it wasn't 18F, who did it?
At first I thought it would just be a new SKU in the USPS.com website. But it looks like they rolled something custom, using CloudFront, S3, Route53 (two new domain names, special.usps.com and special-api.usps.com for POSTing the order form JSON to), API Gateway (and probably Lambda and DynamoDB):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQP9G1cWiICGOoBA...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-s...
> The spectacular failure of Healthcare.gov at launch led to the creation of what came to be known as the Tech Surge, a group of Silicon Valley developers who rescued the website from disorganized contractors and bureaucratic mismanagement. That group gave rise to the U.S. Digital Service and, to a lesser extent, 18F, two government agencies now working to improve the state of federal technology
That being said I think they should really really should maybe give some thought to renaming their group.
They did[1]:
> The United States Digital Service, which grew out of the effort to rescue healthcare.gov, is also assisting with the launch. "We have the best tech teams across our administration working hard to make this a success, and we think we're well positioned to do that,"
[1]: https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/white-house-covid-test-we...
Strange thing is this was supposed to go live tomorrow (19th). Though maybe they were going by Guam where it is already 1/19.
Curious why would we assume it's running on Lambda & DynamoDB vs any other compute & storage? Previous known gov projects?
Since omicron is the vast majority of cases in the wild, and nearly all cases are mild (and the ones that aren't are probably going to get a PCR test anyway), rapid tests are practically next to useless now.
An at home test is better than nothing.
Is it? If there's a significant false negative rate, that will mislead people who may otherwise isolate/quarantine based on symptoms. If I feel kinda sick but test negative and need milk, I'm probably going to the store. Same with taking flight that I can't afford to reschedule, or a Dr. office visit, etc etc.
Three key points from the article:
(1) Rapid tests probably do have a harder time detecting omicron.
(2) Two new rapid tests (from Roche, Siemens), granted EUA in December, "happen" to work "really well" against omicron.
(3) Some of the tests the government will distribute are Roche tests.
Another recent article (https://www.medtechdive.com/news/biden-administration-buy-50...) says the government has contracted with Abbott, iHealth, and Roche for its first 380 million test kits.
So in that first 380 million, 1 out of 3 is already good for omicron. Hopefully as they work toward more contracts for the remainder of the 1 billion tests, the government will try to take omicron into account.
> So in that first 380 million, 1 out of 3 is already good for omicron.
The text says those 3 companies have been contracted for a combined 380 million tests. It doesn't say equally, or list a number for them. You could have a worst case scenario (I'm being overly dramatic here) of 1 test from Roche, and 379,999,999 combined tests from Abbott and iHealth.
I meant 1 out of 3 types of tests present in the first batch, not 1 out of every 3.
I'm told they are equivalent to PCR but I'm not sure if that holds true. It has been a relief being able to test myself and family anytime from home. But I doubt I'd pay for it if it wasn't employer sponsored. It's pretty pricy. But I can see this as something you can share with a small community.
There's also detect [2] that is much more reasonably priced, but seems to be sold out since I heard about them.
[1] https://www.cuehealth.com/products/how-cue-detects-covid-19/ [2] https://detect.com/products/starter-kit
If you have a fever and are coughing and sneezing - stay home!
If your fever is high or you are having trouble breathing - see a doctor.
If someone you spend a lot of time around is sick, wear a good mask and avoid people as much as possible for a few days to make sure you don't have it too.
Or, are we supposed to be testing asymptomatic people? If so, then we're going to need a lot more than four.
Political points, and/or plausible deniability for leaders to be able to say they did something.
What a healthy use of tax-payer funds. To create a show for all of us.
Give them bread and circuses, or something.
For a lot of workplaces a home test isn't enough, you need a PCR test, but this can ideally help you know if you need to go to the trouble.
If someone is more familiar with a CDN that the traditional retail logistics and distributions infrastructure, then it would probably be more helpful of them to think of the situation using that analogy.
USPS is acting both like a retailer, and as a sort of an analogue to a CDN. Both can be helpful models in understanding how this works.
In the UK (which has lower per capita healthcare spending than the US), you can pick up 7 or 14 tests from your local library or local pharmacy, without any appointment, pre-booking or ID.
Just go here and enter your postcode: https://maps.test-and-trace.nhs.uk/
You don't even need an account: all you need is an email to receive a verification link.
"Following guidance from the Biden administration, Kaiser Permanente will now reimburse members for FDA-approved rapid antigen home tests. Submit a reimbursement claim here for tests purchased on or after January 15, 2022"
Yes, there are other ways to get tests. But, lately, booking a drive-through or walk-up test (via Kaiser or one of the 'community sites') is more challenging now than it was in December. You may have to book more than 3 days in advance.
My mother, whom I take care of and live with, has COPD. Despite being vaxxed and boosted, I worry about her contracting it. It would be incredibly easy for me to pass Omicron to her even if I was avoiding being in the same room with her, so I have developed a plan.
Essentially, I have a "bug out bag" in a storage unit, along with entertainment and other ways to keep me occupied. Should I come down with COVID, I am going to go to a motel (not a hotel, a motel, which circulates the air to the outside) and simply hide there, not letting the maids change anything, until the fever breaks. Five days after the fever is gone, I start using tests until I am "clear" on several consecutive tests (swabbed throat and nose). I found a grocery store which delivers food to be left outside of the door, I plan on asking them about motel deliveries (unusual I know).
At checkout time, I hose everything down with Lysol and pay for an extra day in the room, tell them not to let the maids in.
Anyway, I figure this prevents me from exposing people. I cannot figure out anything better that isn't "living in the National parks, catching rabbits and shivering in the cold" hermitage. Anyway, this is going to take a stack of tests to go through. I don't feel great about it, like I am hoarding, but I don't know what else can be done.
I will then blow through three or four tests. The bigger hoard is for coming out of COVID.
If this thing spreads as effectively as its portrayed then we will all likely get it or have had it and not realized. I have been in large crowds several times unmasked now and not gotten any symptoms. Optimally I already had it and just never noticed which is pretty much the perfect scenario. I am vaxxed but my kids are not, still debating getting them vaccinated at this point.
I'm curious if this will be a problem with everyone that has an apartment? Or anyone who's residential address is shared with a business? If so, a lot of people won't be able to receive these tests.
It's a reimbursement system, and obviously only applies to people with insurance; so it has its downsides. I filed a claim and it was easier than expected.
This fairly large caveat is worth noting:
> To be eligible for reimbursement, the following must apply...The tests are being used when a person has COVID symptoms or has had direct exposure, and not for school, work, travel, or attending events
This went into effect on January 15, so only applies to tests purchased then or later.
I have to admit that I do think they’re on the right track with this - it’s certainly better than some other European countries that were initially getting a lot of praise at the start of the pandemic.
- Go through your doctor or insurance provider
- Go to a private clinic
- See if your city or state has partnered with a testing company
To clarify, it is not my intent to advertise for my current day-job/employer...but they do actually provide what OP asked for. Good luck!
EDIT: @0xbadcafebee Sorry, I should have also added that the Scarlet service and associated tests are (likely) *NOT* free...so either you would have to pay out of pocket, or have health care (hope) to cover cost.
I see no utility in arbitrary testing. It burdens urgent care clinics and pharmacies; normal business ceases completely until the testing stops.
If you're ill, stay home and/or call a doctor. If you're desperately ill, call 911 or go to a hospital. If you're OK then stay away from crowds, including covid testing sites.
Asking USPS to distribute/collect covid tests will slow USPS delivery further. The USPS had recently announced a slowdown in delivery anyway. This looks like a politician's way to damage the USPS or its reputation.
for the past 40 some years theyve worked to basically bankrupt the entire service under some misplaced neoliberal economic imperative that somehow private industry will delight in delivering an ikea catalogue to the furthest foetid reaches of alaskan frozen tundra, and that somehow the postal service as it exists currently is wrong and bad for not turning a 15% profit year over year, every year, until the end of years.
the last US president famously worked to remove and destroy postal sorting machines and even outright blocked funding entirely for the organization which singlehandedly created a crisis that still endures in 2022.
now somehow the governments forgotten its holy crusade against grandmas crypto puzzles and uncle ed's mail order cigars and decided screw it, they provide not only the worst service in the history of government services but surprise, now they provide a critical lynchpin of healthcare designed to detect and identify a global pandemic thats killed millions.
the irony is that somehow im sure a bureaucrat will champion this as an innovation, when for the past forever most americans have ordered cheap prescription drugs through the post from Canada and Mexico to treat a cornucopia of other diseases their healthcare system cant seem to without bankrupting them.
Our poor poor planet.
Currently it is #64, and here are its neighbors:
63. 4 points 41 minutes ago 2 comments
64. 232 points 2 hours ago 216 comments
65. 134 points 14 hours ago 285 commentsI suspect that numbers in this wave are being VASTLY underreported not through any malfeasance, but by the fact that omicron has already run through a huge swath of the population more or less asymptomatically.
Check the dashboard for your county to see if the PERCENT of tests coming back positive has increased. Where I live the % positive rate spiked to 20%, twice has high as the last surge.
Common sense goes a long a way.
please explain how this statement could possibly be true—what happened to every other illness? like the cold I had last month for example.
Now, if I had the cold and it felt like no other cold I ever had, then I may go to the doctor (before I consider the hospital).
Things I won’t do if I suspect if I have the cold:
1. Order an online test to see if I have the cold.
In the past 2 months, at least 3 non-covid illnesses have torn through my family (flu and cold, all verified as non-COVID with multiple tests, both antigen and PCR).
If we start treating every case of the sniffles like COVID, we're going to be in perpetual shutdowns...
Things that are not common sense anymore:
1. Order an online test
2. Stand in line at a clinic for a test
3. Goto the hospital
^ Most of us don’t do that when we get the cold.
Instant page load and form submission processing.
No captcha checks.
No weird javascript address validators (half of them think my address is malformed).
No needlessly "cute" page design/graphics.
No problems with any of the slew of privacy and ad-blocking tools I have installed.
Filled in my address and email, clicked submit, done. Seconds later, I had an email from them confirming it.
This is proof that government can work just fine. Guarantee that if this had been a private contracted thing we would have ended up with some monstrosity of browser-choking javascript, needlessly cutesy page design, etc.
Can we please bring this sort of simplicity and efficiency to paying income tax / calculating withholdings and W4s? Or, FFS, everything the IRS does?
And how about a national ID system, please? We already have nearly 1% of the US population in such a system: the DoD's Common Access Card. Lessons learned from that could easily be applied to a national digital/physical ID card. The crap I (and especially my parents) had to go through to prove to my DMV that we were honest-to-god citizen and could have a RealID drivers license...which isn't actually useful for anything except getting on a plane or into a federal building...was insane. And embarrassing, for a "first world" nation in this day and age.
There's really no excuse for those- The USPS provides an address validation API that's easy to use, accurate, and free:
https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/
When you're literally the final word on what is, and is not, a deliverable address, you don't need a regex. You can just do a database lookup. Presumably they're also leveraging the same address matching technology they use with real mail in that API as well.
I occasionally schedule package pickups for the next business day via the USPS website. No issues - package gets picked up by my mail carrier every single time. I occasionally go on vacation and pause my mail. No problem - all done online and delivered together when I get home. I've changed my address three times in the last decade - all done online and executed flawlessly. My day's mail gets scanned and sent to me digitally so I can decide if I need to go to the mailbox that day. It all just works pretty darn well.
The error code on the site says its listed as a business address. Pretty unfortunate
Also there was a lot of talk about getting these out for lower income families - guess what, they're more likely to have multiple generations living under one roof, so limiting this to 4 per house is even worse for them.
We don't! I've had to use a bunch of these lately, as you are supposed to test twice if you have symptoms and test negative the first time (yeah - read the instructions!), and it's cold&flu season.
My entire family has had cold and flu symptoms multiple times in the past 2 months - that's 10 tests each time if we're following protocol.