This is also why lower analytical sensitivity tests, when performed frequently, are MUCH more sensitive than very high sensitivity tests performed infrequently or w slow return of results
If infectious, you will be detected by rapid Ag tests. And that’s what matters.
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But if you aren’t testing frequently, you are VERY likely to miss getting a swab in your nose before or when you are at peak infectivity (bc peak is reached VERY fast and diminishes fast).
So a test that takes a long time to return or is infrequent, simply doesn’t help much.
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Put another way, most people who are infected will pass through the “super-carrier” state, as @EricTopol called it.
It’s not a characteristic of the person getting infected nearly as much as it is the stage that the virus is at, within each person, at the cross section in time.
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For a number of decades, syphilis has been trending up in the U.S.
The cause isn’t singularly but likely is associated with relaxations of prevention of STIs in the context of more effective prophylaxis for HIV (PrEP). Plus general lack of awareness
When left untreated, Syphilis can have devastating consequences on human health
Luckily there is very simple treatment for it (a form of Penicillin) but it only works if you take it - and you only take it if you know you have syphilis
Here we go again with this asinine cautious approach to testing for H5N1
CDC is NOT recommending that people with no symptoms - but who have had contact w infected animals - be tested at all… and certainly are not recommending a swab w any frequency.
Though we should have learned it in 2020, Here’s why this doesnt make sense:
1/
Firstly, tests are our eyes for viruses. It’s literally how we see where viruses are
If we wait until people are getting sick, we may have missed a major opportunity to find viruses jumping into humans before they learn to become so efficient in us that they cause disease
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So waiting until we actually have highly pathogenic strains harming humans - when we have a pretty discreet population at the moment to survey - is short sighted
3/
A particularly deadly consequence of measles is its erasure of previously acquired immune memory - setting kids and adults up for infections that they shouldn’t be at risk from!
We found for example that measles can eliminate as much as 80% of someone’s previously acquired immunity to other pathogens! science.org/doi/full/10.11…