The hottest Infectiousness Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Health & Wellness Topics

A Study's Bombshell Finding That Has Been Ignored

Silent Lunch, The David Zweig Newsletter • 43 implied HN points • 01 Sep 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Research Pandemic response Societal Impact Infectiousness Public Health
  1. A new study challenges the logic behind pandemic responses like forced masking and distancing for healthy individuals.
  2. Research shows that presymptomatic infected individuals rarely have the ability to infect others.
  3. Findings suggest that social distancing measures may not have been as effective as previously believed.

New Fast Tests and Distress from Regulators

Joshua Gans' Newsletter • 19 implied HN points • 28 Aug 20
🏥 Health & Wellness Testing Regulations Infectiousness Public Health
  1. Widespread frequent testing is crucial to quickly deal with Covid-19 and reduce economic pain. Challenges include the need for cheap, rapid tests and regulators changing their approach for pandemic mitigation.
  2. The new Abbott test is a $5 fast test authorized by the FDA, but is limited to use on symptomatic individuals. The test requires administration by healthcare providers, impacting its potential impact.
  3. Regulations can be changed to expand the use of tests like Abbott's which may be more valuable for identifying infectious individuals. The decision to limit the test to symptomatic use may hinder efforts to stop the virus spread.

We need to adjust how we are using rapid tests

Joshua Gans' Newsletter • 0 implied HN points • 05 Apr 22
🏥 Health & Wellness COVID-19 Rapid Testing Infectiousness Vaccines
  1. Rapid antigen tests (RATs) are crucial despite delays in testing positive after symptoms - it's essential to use them more, not less, to catch infections early.
  2. Symptoms like cough and brain fog can precede positive RAT results, but do not indicate contagion - testing should happen a few days after symptoms start to confirm infection.
  3. Current guidelines recommend testing too early after symptoms; waiting 5 days to test after symptom onset is more accurate - understanding this can help prevent the spread of the virus.

Missing infectiousness information for vaccines

Joshua Gans' Newsletter • 0 implied HN points • 09 Dec 20
🏥 Health & Wellness Vaccines Infectiousness Trials Prevention Testing
  1. Vaccines must be evaluated for their ability to prevent people from spreading the virus, not just protecting the individual.
  2. It is crucial to gather information on infectiousness alongside vaccine trials to understand their full impact.
  3. Strategies like frequent testing of early vaccine recipients and vaccinating hard-hit regions first can provide valuable insights on the spread of vaccinated individuals.

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.
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Why the best isn't best

Joshua Gans' Newsletter • 0 implied HN points • 31 Aug 20
🏥 Health & Wellness Testing Infectiousness Treatment
  1. The precision of a test doesn't always make it the best choice, especially in cases like testing for infectious diseases.
  2. Having the best test can sometimes be a disadvantage, like with PCR tests that can be too sensitive, leading to unnecessary costs and false positives.
  3. Lowering the sensitivity threshold of tests, like PCR, can be more beneficial in identifying active infections and informing isolation decisions.