So let's do another thread on why the testing debate is so absurd. Let's assume you have zero tests (for our purpose irrelevant why) but you've been told about this disease. What do you do? Let's play some game theory folks. First, the entire purpose of well trained 1/n
Doctors is that they can diagnose things. They ask you questions about have you travelled recently? What are your symptoms? Alert to what is happening, they can move to zero in on what are the probable medical issues causing what is presenting at the ER. In fact, doctors 2/n
Diagnose many things without tests or even a positive diagnosis. Flu tests do not have high accuracy and yet lots and lots of people get diagnosed with the flu without either a test or a positive test. Second, let's assume you go to the doctor and the doctor thinks you have 3/n
corona but no way of medically confirming it. Does this really change anything? No. They could treat you as a likely corona case based upon X symptoms and in most cases that treatment regimen (though they are being created right now with no standard protocol) would be 4/n
Pretty similar to whether you had corona or run of the mill pneumonia. In other words, whether you have a medical test or not is largely irrelevant to treated cases. Third, even with no swab test and no reliable swab tests, there are other ways. This is something doctors 5/n
In the developing world know how to do well which is kind like McGyver the system. For corona, it is CT scans. Yes, it doesn't tell you if you have the virus but the visuals are pretty obvious. Fourth, evidence indicates that the vast majority of highly symptomatic 6/n
patients have high false negative rates and that vast majority of contagious people either do not develop symptoms or very mild symptoms, unless you are just going to test everyone in the US just because, the obsession with the testing issue seems wildly overdone. 7/n
Most importantly? You can still do things like emphasizing hand washing, mask wearing, and social distancing with or without an unreliable test. Seems like these measures have much bigger impact than testing. We shouldn't ignore the basics of logic in corona panic.
