That’s a really interesting point. I wish we had a conventional way of suspending certain regulations in certain circumstances, rather than having to wait decades for an entirely overhauled piece of legislation on the whole macrotopic. Are there things like, I don’t know, executive non-enforcement orders that ever get used similarly?
Do you know of any non-pooled tests that are cheap and fast, that perhaps a group of individuals could order loads of? I’ve heard people talk about LAMP and such for a while but without any persuasive end-to-end evidence.
A complexity here is that “the macrotopic to reform” is “the entire system… like practically all of it”.
You can’t just delete the FDA because while the FDA is the current lynchpin (and “FDA delenda est”), to have a good system, that was not broken (in the way or other ways), you also need tort reform, and insurance reform, and on and on and on...
As near as I have been able to tell, the reason Pooled Testing is illegal, is because there are OSHA laws protecting chemists, basically, so if a chemist in a lab is running test reactions all day every day, and they accidentally put a “cut finger” into a jar of slime… OSHA requires that the jar of slime be traceable all the way back to someone who can be tricked or compelled or begged into somehow taking an HIV test. If the jar “from the patient to the chemist” lacks a chain of custody, then the chemist’s employer is not allowed to have the chemist to do that job.
If you have a cup, and can check the box “[X] let me know by text message” and write your phone # on the cup, and your cup goes into a jar with 2000 other people, and the whole 2000-cup batch gets a negative, then 1 test reaction generates 2000 “negative results”… great… except OSHA will shit a brick. That’s not allowed.
OSHA things the poor chemist can’t just refuse? Isn’t grownup enough to decide for themselves what risks they’ll take for what amount of pay?
The macrotopic for which we need to “suspend certain regulations”, as near as I can tell is simply: “using paternalistic reasoning to forbid people from owning risk to themselves after looking at local factors and deciding for themselves”.
Delete all ALL the laws whose only flimsy excuse is paternalism, and then I think any small city mayor could save their small city from covid using stuff you can buy at the grocery store (or maybe a lab supply company) based on ideas and tutorials you can look up online… Then they hire some (potentially inadequate) people to take some risks and learn on the job, and it “solves for covid”? I think?
(Though maybe a non-assertive half-competent chemist or two gets HIV. In my mind: worth it!)
Do you know of any non-pooled tests that are cheap and fast, that perhaps a group of individuals could order loads of? I’ve heard people talk about LAMP and such for a while but without any persuasive end-to-end evidence.
Antigen tests. They take 15min to give results, and are 0.8€(retail) here.
That’s a really interesting point. I wish we had a conventional way of suspending certain regulations in certain circumstances, rather than having to wait decades for an entirely overhauled piece of legislation on the whole macrotopic. Are there things like, I don’t know, executive non-enforcement orders that ever get used similarly?
Do you know of any non-pooled tests that are cheap and fast, that perhaps a group of individuals could order loads of? I’ve heard people talk about LAMP and such for a while but without any persuasive end-to-end evidence.
A complexity here is that “the macrotopic to reform” is “the entire system… like practically all of it”.
You can’t just delete the FDA because while the FDA is the current lynchpin (and “FDA delenda est”), to have a good system, that was not broken (in the way or other ways), you also need tort reform, and insurance reform, and on and on and on...
As near as I have been able to tell, the reason Pooled Testing is illegal, is because there are OSHA laws protecting chemists, basically, so if a chemist in a lab is running test reactions all day every day, and they accidentally put a “cut finger” into a jar of slime… OSHA requires that the jar of slime be traceable all the way back to someone who can be tricked or compelled or begged into somehow taking an HIV test. If the jar “from the patient to the chemist” lacks a chain of custody, then the chemist’s employer is not allowed to have the chemist to do that job.
If you have a cup, and can check the box “[X] let me know by text message” and write your phone # on the cup, and your cup goes into a jar with 2000 other people, and the whole 2000-cup batch gets a negative, then 1 test reaction generates 2000 “negative results”… great… except OSHA will shit a brick. That’s not allowed.
OSHA things the poor chemist can’t just refuse? Isn’t grownup enough to decide for themselves what risks they’ll take for what amount of pay?
The macrotopic for which we need to “suspend certain regulations”, as near as I can tell is simply: “using paternalistic reasoning to forbid people from owning risk to themselves after looking at local factors and deciding for themselves”.
Delete all ALL the laws whose only flimsy excuse is paternalism, and then I think any small city mayor could save their small city from covid using stuff you can buy at the grocery store (or maybe a lab supply company) based on ideas and tutorials you can look up online… Then they hire some (potentially inadequate) people to take some risks and learn on the job, and it “solves for covid”? I think?
(Though maybe a non-assertive half-competent chemist or two gets HIV. In my mind: worth it!)
Antigen tests. They take 15min to give results, and are 0.8€(retail) here.
Hm, I meant to exclude those because of their abysmal sensitivities, but I suppose I should revisit them now in case they’ve gotten better.
They are not that bad.
sensitivity (Ct ≤33): 97,1% (132/136), (95% CI: 92,7%~98,9%)
sensitivity (Ct ≤37): 91,4% (139/152), (95% CI: 85,9%~94,9%)
Considering the price and simplicity they are often worthwhile.