This is a very succinct telling of the loopholes that exist in the current world response, and I find it refreshing because David Crowe voices something that few voice: the possibility of false positives. In fact, false positives have been DEFINED out of the picture because if they test you, and you're positive, but you don't have symptoms, and you don't develop symptoms, then they just say that you are one of the lucky ones who gets infected but doesn't get sick. But, if we were going to assume that every time, then if we, hypothetically, had a faulty test, how would we ever know?
David Crowe suggests testing 1000 people who are certain not to have it to see if any positive results follow. You could use 1000 healthy people from a part of the world that is completely untouched by this. I realize that that is a tall order now, and some will say that it is impossible, that no place is untouched. But surely a month ago there were plenty of places that were untouched, and it could have been done then. And even now, the population of Antarctica, mostly scientists, varies from 1000 in the dead of winter to 4000 in the summer. Has the virus gone there? If not, then you swab all the Antarcticans and see if you get all negatives results on them, as you should. But, you don't tell the labs. It's got to be done blindly.
Right now, we are waiting to see if Senator Rand Paul gets sick. What if he doesn't? How are you going to rationalize it? Is he Superman? We are in a situation where it's not the symptoms or the progression that defines the illness. It is only the test that defines the illness, and that test has instantly become sacrosanct.
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