The hottest Covid-19 testing Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Health & Wellness Topics

Testing at the door versus testing at the desk

Joshua Gans' Newsletter • 19 implied HN points • 21 Oct 20
🏥 Health Politics Public Health Covid-19 testing Infectious Diseases Epidemiology
  1. Consider testing at the desk instead of at the door to reduce operational challenges and costs, though it comes with the risk of letting infectious individuals into the space
  2. Testing at the desk may lead to fewer infections if it can be done more frequently than testing at the door, highlighting the importance of cost-benefit analysis in testing strategies
  3. Exploring various testing strategies, including combinations of at-the-door and at-the-desk testing, can provide a system with lower cost and less risk in managing infections

Validation of the value of rapid tests

Joshua Gans' Newsletter • 0 implied HN points • 09 Oct 20
🏥 Health & Wellness Covid-19 testing Infectiousness Rapid tests
  1. Rapid tests are seen as valuable for finding and isolating infectious people, possibly even more so than PCR tests.
  2. A study found that antigen-based testing had similar sensitivity to PCR tests when it comes to detecting infectious individuals, with slightly less false positives.
  3. At higher viral loads, rapid antigen tests showed good agreement with PCR tests in detecting positive cases, indicating their potential effectiveness in identifying infectious individuals.

Test Week: On the Rebound

Joshua Gans' Newsletter • 0 implied HN points • 20 Aug 20
🏥 Health & Wellness Covid-19 testing Risk management
  1. Implementing widespread, cheap, rapid Covid-19 testing may impact people's behavior in managing contagion risk.
  2. Rolling out a testing regime could lead to a rebound effect where people engage in less social distancing and mask-wearing, potentially increasing infections.
  3. To mitigate the rebound effect, it is important to identify groups likely to reduce social distancing, combine testing with mandatory distancing, and avoid relying solely on self-reported tests.

Push For Better Testing

Are You Okay? • 0 implied HN points • 27 Jul 20
🏥 Health & Wellness Covid-19 testing Stress management Public Health
  1. Appropriate testing is vital for managing COVID-19 effectively, and it's crucial to know which test to get in different situations, like feeling sick or having potential exposure.
  2. Regular and widespread testing, especially with cheap, self-administered rapid tests, is key to controlling the spread of the virus, even in asymptomatic carriers.
  3. Quick and frequent testing can help identify individuals who are contagious, allowing for immediate isolation and prevention of further transmission, but the approval and scaling up of these tests is crucial.
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