A lot of localities evidently hide behind ‘CDC guidelines’ that they published as to when it’s ‘safe’ to do this or that. Those guidelines include a metric for daily positivity (testing) rate. Does that metric account for the false-positive rate inherent to the test?
If not, we will have set up a system where we have decided we ‘can’t’ open this and that until a number with an inherent noise-rate averaging X goes below X/2. A ‘benchmark’ that can, and will, never be reached.
If that’s the case (and I sincerely don’t know) then I can only say I am Opposed To More Testing. In fact, I would want as little testing as possible. Not because I don’t see the value of testing for pandemic control, but because (in that case) people have setup retarded metrics.
This is one of the pitfalls of the McKinseyization of this whole thing (metrics! dashboards! phases! table of guidelines! multi pronged decision trees!). Everything becomes gamified in a way that’s just completely distant from actual outcomes. If that’s the game, let’s play
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
