FDA: Do Not Use Cue Health's Covid-19 Tests Due to Risk of False Results
fda.gov
fda.gov
I'm almost certain those changes were to reduce production costs. This is a widespread endemic (no pun intended) across many industries.
But this, together with recent layoffs (50% of staff, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2024-05-...) seems like a death blow.
Was it another theranos and the approach was not feasible from the beginning?
My company was providing Cue test cartridges for free. They always struck me as over engineered.
Feels wasteful throwing the whole thing away, but I guess that’s normal for medical devices.
I have kids in daycare, and we’ve probably gone through most of them, but why is the focus on a single virus? I got laid out by influenza type A in 2022, and had to pay $175 to an urgent care to get tested for that.
Simplest answer: because due to the contagious nature of the virus there was a large economic incentive to being able to rapidly and accurately assess whether someone was sick, and because many businesses/governments had explicit rules around attending while infected with COVID. Similar resources and rules were not in place for other viruses.
Full answer: because it's a novel, actively evolving virus that poses significant health risks and is significantly more contagious than the other viruses you mentioned.
The FDA is concerned that we are stupid, so we aren't allowed to use them.
I guess it helps to not have the FDA blocking everything?
In my house, if someone is sick and visiting the kitchen every couple hours hacking up a lung, but won't spend 3 minutes to crack open one of those free government tests, that would be a bit rude. Catching any virus sucks, so I'd appreciate an FYI about if the air they're exhaling has the virility to infect an average of 6 people or an average of 1 person (or whatever the latest research has determined the wildly high R-value of infectiousness to be of covid vs a cold). The difference affects how active I need to be to avoid catching a bug.
It remains far far more dangerous than the illnesses it can resemble. I spend a lot of time around disabled people whose risk profiles can accept masked interaction with a cold, but not covid.
This is my opinion, but that sounds totally unnecessary and so singularly focused to render itself ineffective (I understand the altruistic part). There are people in my office that continue to wear N95 respirators, alone, in their cubicle on a daily basis. I feel sorry for their personal burden because at this point it's clear they are never going to stop. At some point you have to let go for life to have the ability to return to normal.
This theater made sense when Covid was mostly lethal, which set it apart from other common illnesses. This is no longer the case.
You can’t tell the difference just by looking at someone.
You make valid points but COVID broke people's brains and caused widespread hypochondria. People in this category are likely making poorer long term health choices (e.g. N95 masks should not be worn for more than a few hours as it's hard on your heart).
My general hope from society is that we learn new things and improve over time. COVID completely changed the public and expert understanding of airborne illnesses.
While cloth masks don't work, N95-grade masks absolutely do.
Anyway, the new normal _still_ includes Covid, and Covid is still a significant risk to the naive (un-or-insufficiently vaccinated or people who haven't had it yet). It's comparably risky to a bad flu, which is a pretty real thing.
Do you have a citation for the N95 risk? I'm sure a bunch of painters and woodworkers would be interested in that.
https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/EPO/Pages/Wildfire%20Pages/...
The site also says:
N95 respirators may make breathing more difficult and lead to increased breathing and heart rates. Individuals with heart and respiratory conditions should check with their doctor before wearing an N95 respirator.
N95 usage results in significantly elevated CO2 levels, reduced O2, and increased heart rate, with far more pronounced effects in overweight individuals. This is common knowledge and there have been plenty of medical articles published about this for years pre-COVID; Google them if you wish.
If anyone has done drywall or woodworking you know what a relief it is when you pull that mask off.
I am a strong believer in PPE. Wearing it when it's not necessary isn't a great idea.
From the page you point to about use for protection against wildfire smoke, it sounds like it is 8 hours use for a single mask, after which the mask should be discarded and replaced.
> N95 usage results in significantly elevated CO2 levels, reduced O2, and increased heart rate, with far more pronounced effects in overweight individuals.
In healthcare workers, only in heart rate, not CO2 or O2 [0]; the other factors may occur in the normal environment for non-medical N95 use (outside of the COVID pandemic) – i.e., dealing with particularly particulate-polluted environments, where the particulates will accumulated on the outside of the respirator (outside of the unique circumstances of the pandemic, healthcare N95 use has historically been either for a single encounter or perhaps a period – rarely more than a couple hours – in a diagnosis-segregated environment, since otherwise it would create an exposure risk more than protecting against it.)
I interpret this as a statement about the lifespan of a respirator, not about what's healthy for the wearer.
If you, like me, avoided the mRNA gene therapy injections, but still attend barbecues and other get-togethers, it's a good way of confirming that you were the recipient of spike proteins from one of the injected. Sunday before last (8 days ago), I was gifted Covid-19 a third time since Easter 2020 (took a test to be sure) from a bowl of spicy Fuego Takis at a barbecue, likely from licking my fingers clean of all the powder rather than washing them with soap and water.
The reason it was worth confirming that it was Covid was because of the irregular heartbeat I had during the first two days of the illness, and I wanted to make sure it wasn't something unrelated. Post-testing, I knew that 50mg daily zinc and vitamin C & D megadoses was all I needed for the rest of the week.
So you're saying it never made sense? What does mostly lethal mean?
For a recent family holiday, I decided to postpone because one group had covid and the other had flu, and we decided that having both viruses at the same event would not be fun. But if we both had the same thing, we wouldn't have avoided each other.
More importantly, my 85-year-old father-in-law finally got it despite precautions, and he had quite a hard time. I really don’t want to be the one who brings him a second infection.