Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

This fight is for everything.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / New COVID Saliva Test Could Be A Game-Changer

New COVID Saliva Test Could Be A Game-Changer

by | 212 Comments

This post is in: ,

One of our jackals Thanks to BeautifulPlumage who sent this to me just now.

I only have her name and not her nym, so I can’t credit the tip just yet.

Here’s the link to the Andy Slavitt thread.

Saliva-based coronavirus test funded by NBA, NBPA gets emergency authorization from FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization on Saturday allowing public use of a saliva-based test for the coronavirus developed at Yale University and funded by the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association.

The test, known as SalivaDirect, is designed for widespread public screening. The cost per sample could be as low as about $4, though the cost to consumers will likely be higher than that — perhaps around $15 or $20 in some cases, according to expert sources.

Yale administered the saliva test to a group that included NBA players and staff in the lead-up to the league’s return to play and compared results to the nasal swab tests the same group took. The results almost universally matched, according to published research that has not yet been peer-reviewed.

So is this a Big Joe Biden deal?

I do know that the University of Illinois developed their own saliva test, which is being used by students, faculty and staff this fall. So there may be quite a bit happening on this front.

Update: Another article, from The Atlantic.  The Plan That Could Give Us Our Lives Back: How to test every American for COVID-19 every day. 

What you see below scrolls, so you can see the entire thread.

Reader Interactions

212Comments

  2. 2.

    Starfish

    The ESPN story that Slavitt linked has all the details. It is a cheap test that is easy to do. Testing will be a lot more widely available now.

  5. 5.

    Auntie Anne

    Delaware purchased and has been using saliva tests since June. This company provides them, and the state  offers them to everyone for free.  You have to make an appointment at most of the drive-through locations to be tested, but Delaware has been good about making sure the locations are accessible by public transit or are located in community centers.

    Several of my friends have been tested and all are very happy that tests are available and easy to get.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    one of the doctors who appears regularly on MSNBC has been calling for a saliva test– I don’t know if it’s this one– to be approved for weeks

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I mentioned above that I do know that the University of Illinois developed their own saliva test, which is being used by students, faculty and staff starting already, I believe.

    So they must have gotten approval from somewhere in order to be able to use the test, but they didn’t include details about that.

    So there may be quite a bit happening on this front in a multitude of places.

  9. 9.

    Mokum

    I took the University of Illinois saliva test on tuesday, 40 hours later I got the negative result. They aim for 5 hours, but they just got started. It takes a couple of minutes to drool the required amount in a little plastic container. No nurses required. You store the result on an app that will give you access to campus buildings for 4 days. Then you take another test. The first students will be arriving tomorrow, the first thing they have to do is take the test. The university will administer 10,000 test a day, whereas the whole Champaign county has upto now done 100,000 test since february. They have some sort of experimental approval from the FDA.

  11. 11.

    germy

    I always assumed trump was taking saliva tests.  I couldn’t imagine him tolerating anyone sticking a long stick into his nose.  Too invasive.

  12. 12.

    Martin

    @raven: My apologies if my reply came off that way.

    But my concerns here still stand; The problem is not the test. The problem is the logistics and lack of prioritization that we have given this from the beginning. Swapping out the test changes what those logistics and prioritization can look like, but it doesn’t change that they need to at least exist in some form.

    This is swapping out the firefighers in front of your house for marginally better firefighters, but refusing to install a hydrant that they can get water from. It doesn’t matter if the firefighters are marginally better – they weren’t the problem.

    The upshot, if we can take it as such, is that a hypothetial Biden/Harris administration could design our first ever Covid response infrastructure around this test vs the existing tests – which would likely be easier and opens up some new possibilities for expanding testing throughput, but that’s the soonest it’s really going to help.

    Just be clear, several universities are using spit tests. It’s not just one. It’s not that radical of a development. It’s just a development that existing labs didn’t want to make, and the universities made it because we are completely excluded from the existing test framework, what trivial amount of it exists. So as things stand now, it won’t benefit anyone not attending or working at a handful of universities.

    All of this is due to a lack of a national plan, national infrastructure, and so on. And a new test has no ability to influence what Trump does. That is the sole failure of the US, and unfortunately this should provide us with no hope that things will get better. It’s just lying to ourselves to think otherwise.

  13. 13.

    Ohio Mom

    The other half is that people who test positive but still feel well must be convinced to quaratine themselves. How do we make that happen?

  14. 14.

    Martin

    Ok, yeah, that 2nd response wasn’t any better in terms of tone.

    Sorry, raven. This is good new information. I shouldn’t beat up the messenger.

  15. 15.

    raven

    @Martin: Oh not at all and it wasn’t just you that thought it was over emphasized or celebrated. I didn’t take it personally I just thought I was blinded by the light.

  16. 16.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy:

    I couldn’t imagine him tolerating anyone sticking a long stick into his nose.  Too invasive.

    I’ve had the same thought– don’t they claim people with Oval Office access get tested every day, too? I can’t imagine Kellyanne going along with a daily brain stab

  17. 17.

    Robert Sneddon

    What’s the false positive and false negative rates for this saliva test, under “street” conditions i.e. not carried out by well-trained operators in quantity one million? Have there been any double-blind trials etc.?

     

    There’s been a lot of “game-changers” in this ongoing fustercluck of an pandemic, wishful thinking like Magic Quinine or cow’s urine or Himalayan salt which turned out to be less than useful. Colour me dubious about this particular miracle, sorry.

     

    Saying that, even with more available, quicker and hopefully reliable testing the authorities still have to collect that data, understand it and impose quarantines and self-isolation to stop the disease spreading and sufferers infecting others where necessary. Generally, the states in the US (there is no United States in this particular case) with a very few exceptions aren’t willing or able to do what is needed in the face of opposition by their citizens. Even the mostly-placebo mask ordinances are meeting vocal and determined resistance while something that actually works like lockdown, quarantine and isolation will just not happen.

  18. 18.

    zhena gogolia

    Great, and our place has gone all-in on the nasal swab.

    It’s going to be exciting.

    But what I hope is that universities will blaze the trail for the rest of the country. I have to have some hope. Nothing else is going right.

  19. 19.

    Stuart Frasier

    I got a cheek-swab test last week at Dodger’s Stadium.  Was quick and easy, got my [negative] result in about 18 hours.

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    @Mokum: I added the app to my phone on Friday, but as a former student and former employee, I don’t have access to the saliva test!

    I wish the community people could take the test as well.

    A friend of mine took the test at the UI, and she was able to get the results later the same day, but that was before the app was released.

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin: What’s the phrase?  Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

    From what I know so far, I call this pretty damn good news.

    Are the existing labs for the nasal swab tests standing in the way of developments in an effort to stay relevant?  By which I mean, make a shit ton of money.

  23. 23.

    germy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  I can’t imagine Kellyanne going along with a daily brain stab

    Who knows where she draws the line as to what to go along with?

    I know they’re all about their own personal safety, no matter what they tell the rest of us about “opening up” and “getting back to work.”

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin: It does seem like universities could open up testing to the wider community, doesn’t it?

    I mean once they get going, not when they are first testing every student that arrives.

    Even just testing of the students is going to provide interesting data, don’t you think?  I wonder what % of students are walking around with it and not even knowing?  This first week of students arriving is going to be interesting.

    And by interesting, I mean “oh fuck” this isn’t going to be good.

  26. 26.

    raven

    @germy: “Who knows where she draws the line as to what to go along with?”

     

    Dawg you are setting it up on a tee but I’m not gonna hit it!

  30. 30.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: Two of our friends kids moved in the dorms this week. There have been a good number of students who have bailed because UGA is making all freshman live on campus. It reminds me of when I had 10 day between Vietnam and the U of I. You had to be 21 to live off campus and I was only 19 so I ended up in Bromley Hall.

  32. 32.

    Mokum

    @WaterGirl: I am pretty sure that the university plans to extend the test also to the community. But first they need to make sure they can deal with the students and staff. They will know by the end of the month. My wife uses the campus pools, but can at this point not be tested. She was told that Real Soon she could be.

  33. 33.

    debbie

    @germy:

    Speaking of, has there been any news about Trump’s hospitalized younger brother? All I’ve heard is that his condition is serious.

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    @Mokum:

    My wife uses the campus pools, but can at this point not be tested. She was told that Real Soon she could be.

    That would be excellent news!

    edit: When I installed the app, because of no testing on my part yet, I was coded ORANGE, potential exposure.

  42. 42.

    BeautifulPlumage

    I sent the info to Watergirl. My big take away is that it won’t be a kit sold and marketed. It is the procedure that any lab with the equipment can do. This removes supply chain & manufacturing restrictions.

    Also, the developers are trying to keep the cost low to allow frequent testing; the thread explains all the implications for sensitivity & specificity. The developers hope to avoid profiteering by making the public aware of the expected cost.

  46. 46.

    Tokyokie

    So in other words, professional basketball players have done more to stop the pandemic than the entire Dump administration. Between this, and LeBron James’ offer to pay ex-felons’ poll taxes in Florida, maybe the NBAPA should be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @schrodingers_cat: I don’t know that Martin will be able to answer that because it appears that there are a number of saliva tests that are going into use right now, and they may all use different methods.

    That’s my guess, anyway.

  49. 49.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @debbie: Robert and his wife– I think they’ve divorced — were huge camera-chasers back in the 80s. Mary Trump tells the story in her book of being in Fred’s hospital room when the old Klansman was breathing his last. She finds herself standing next to a visibly impatient Mrs Robert who sighs loudly and says, “we’re supposed to be in London right now, as the guests of Prince Charles.” Mary says it was the only time Mrs Robert ever spoke to her.

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    COVID-related, any further info on this? (excerpted from NYT our local paper) Because Trump touched it, there’s an NDA. Our tax money, mind.

    WASHINGTON The health care technology firm that is helping to manage the Trump administration’s new coronavirus database has refused to answer questions from Senate Democrats about its $10.2 million contract, citing a nondisclosure agreement it signed with the Department of Health and Human Services.

    In a letter dated Aug. 3 and obtained Friday by The New York Times, a lawyer for Pittsburgh-based TeleTracking Technologies cited the nondisclosure agreement in declining to say how it collects and shares data. The lawyer refused to share the company’s proposal to the government, its communications with administration officials and other information related to the awarding of the contract.

    That contract has come under scrutiny in the wake of an abrupt decision last month by Alex Azar, the health and human services secretary, who ordered hospitals to stop reporting coronavirus patient data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and instead send the information to TeleTracking for inclusion in a centralized coronavirus database. The order raised alarms about data transparency and the sidelining of CDC experts.

    Jessica Tillipman, an assistant dean at George Washington University Law School who teaches about government contracts and anticorruption, said Friday that nondisclosure agreements with government vendors were unusual.

    “One of the cornerstones of the federal procurement system is transparency, so it strikes me as odd,” she said.

    The government uses the data to help track the pandemic and make crucial decisions about how to allocate scarce supplies, like ventilators and the drug remdesivir, which is used to treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients. HHS officials have said the switch was necessary to speed up reporting and improve accuracy.

    But the abrupt change – hospitals were given several days’ notice – has generated an outcry among public health experts and outside advisers to the health and human services agency, who say that the new system is burdening hospitals and endangering scientific integrity.

  51. 51.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: Some thinking has it that the dorms are largely a public-private enterprise here and the people that make the dough really insisted on the kids being in the dorms. Both of these young ladies are going to be 100% online. My niece at UC Santa Cruz is in the same position.

  52. 52.

    BeautifulPlumage

    And to Martin & Raven & Robert Sneddon: please see my comment above. Yes, other places have developed the test kit, the Yale – NBA test could be implemented quickly & cheaply enough to allow larger scale testing outside of medical centers.

    I apologize that I sent the info to Watergirl and then went back to chores instead of being available to point these elements out.

  53. 53.

    Phein60

    My wife is an AP at the U of I at Urbana-Champaign and she has to be tested twice each week.  They aren’t even asking for her insurance info, unlike at our son’s college, so this must be coming out of general funds.

  55. 55.

    Mokum

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: yes, exactly, that is the point of frequent and widespread testing. In the Netherlands they still have an insane policy where they only test people with symptons. So it is hard to contain outbreaks.

  56. 56.

    raven

    Breaking

     

    The US Food and Drug Administration announced Saturday that it has granted emergency use authorization to a Covid-19 diagnostic test that uses a new, inexpensive method of processing saliva samples.
    The test, called SalivaDirect, has been found to be highly sensitive, yielding similar outcomes to nasopharyngeal swabbing. Under the observation of a health care worker, saliva is self-collected in a sterile container without the use of a specific swab or collection device.
    The molecular diagnostic test can yield results in under three hours, researchers said, and up to 92 samples can be tested at once. Researchers said the test costs only a couple dollars for reagents, and they expect labs to charge only about $10 per sample.
    The method is being used by the National Basketball Association to test asymptomatic people for coronavirus. The NBA was among the groups that funded the research.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    If anyone is interested in reading the Andy Slavitt thread, I just added it to the post up top.  Just scroll to see the whole thing.

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    Is this an open thread? Can I just collapse here in a despondent heap over things I don’t feel comfortable talking about even in anonymity?

  64. 64.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: That’s all awesome. But at $10 a day, most of us couldn’t afford that.

    edit:  But the current tests are probably hundreds of dollars a pop, so surely a huge improvement.

  67. 67.

    Phein60

    @Mokum: my wife took hers on monday, got the results Tuesday afternoon (negative).   They’re doing the Uni kids and staff, too, I hear.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan:

    citing a nondisclosure agreement it signed with the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Jesus Christ. trump is able to run the executive branch like his two-bit Potemkin companies because Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski let him. I know you all know that, but it pisses me off every damn day.

  73. 73.

    Brachiator

    The results almost universally matched, according to published research that has not yet been peer-reviewed.

    This is a sticking point. If analysis can be fast tracked, I’m all for it.

  75. 75.

    mrmoshpotato

    Game 2 of STL@CWS 0-0 in the top of the 3rd at Comiskey.  Maybe they’ll both lose. ?

    Go Cubs go!

  76. 76.

    arrieve

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: OMG, I had completely — mercifully — forgotten about the existence of Blaine Trump (Robert’s ex-wife.) OT, but she was as you say a real attention whore in the 80’s. I once worked  for a corporate PR department that bought a table at a benefit and none of the bigwigs were interested in going so we peons went. It was all society types in ball gowns and I was wearing my work clothes so it was a combination of uncomfortable and hilarious and an amazing chance for people-watching. Both Blaine and Ivanka were there, and Blaine was a class A bitch to the staff, whereas Ivanka seemed kind of charming. I hadn’t thought about that in so many years. Also Sylvester Stallone (surprisingly short) was the chair of event and the first three words of his after-dinner speech were, “Well, like, uh….”

  78. 78.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    @debbie:

    The brother, Robert, is the one who tried so hard — on behalf of the family — to block publication of Mary Trump’s book. According to one article I read this morning, he was actually quite ill already when he filed the lawsuits.

  86. 86.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    WASHINGTON The health care technology firm that is helping to manage the Trump administration’s new coronavirus database has refused to answer questions from Senate Democrats about its $10.2 million contract, citing a nondisclosure agreement it signed with the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Wait. What? How the hell do you have an NDA with a government agency?

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @WaterGirl: they are the most likely these days, even including Collins, to cluck their tongues and express Concern, also the two I suspect are closest to doing the right thing, not that I’m holding my breath for them to do it. I remember Murkowski saying during the Kavanaugh vote, when things got heated, that she was “praying for our country.” To paraphrase the old joke about the guy who died waiting for god to help: God gave you a vote in the Senate, Dumbass, do something with it

    ETA: @zhena gogolia: Mitt Romney? He voted to convict.

    Yup, and I respect that, and we shouldn’t be at a point, ever, where voting to convict and remove a President of your own party is a half-step, but at this point, I think it was. I also appreciate him speaking up about the post office, and maybe some will follow him this time, but until he’s willing to hurt McConnell, anything he does will probably fall short.

  89. 89.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @different-church-lady: from @lizhackette yesterday:

    She began that day as she began all days, sinking to the floor in a voluminous ballgown that defied explanation, before looking out the window and asking “Why?”

  92. 92.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:   Ahhh.  Do check back for a recorded version.

    James Lee Burke is 83 years old.  Had not realized that ….  he is a favorite of Wiley Cash.

  98. 98.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne:   I just remember Robert and Blaine being more successful socialites than the Donald and Ivana.  They looked and acted more like what passes for normal people in that set.

  99. 99.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Tokyokie:

     

    Between this, and LeBron James’ offer to pay ex-felons’ poll taxes in Florida, maybe the NBAPA should be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

    NO! The Nobel Peace Prize must be a lure to get Trump out of the country to a location where he can be arrested and taken to The Hague.

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    Trump may be losing, but he is still running the government like a two-bit mobster for whom loyalty is everything. Posting on the fly, so forgive the absence of formatting. From CNN.

    (CNN)Two senior Trump political appointees departed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a senior official at the agency confirmed to CNN.

    Kyle McGowan, the chief of staff, and Amanda Campbell, the deputy chief of staff, resigned effective Friday, leaving to start a consulting firm, the official said. Both left voluntarily, the official added. CNN has reached out to McGowan and Campbell for comment.

    Politico first reported the news of their departures.

    The pair had been criticized by Trump administration officials for not being loyal enough. McGowan started working in Health and Human Services under then-Secretary Tom Price. He first served as director of external affairs for HHS before moving to the CDC. CNN has reached out to HHS for comment about the departures.

    McGowan was the first ever CDC chief of staff who was a political appointee, the official said.

    CNN saw the letter sent by Campbell Friday morning announcing her departure and thanking the CDC for her time at the agency.

  104. 104.

    piratedan

    the fact that we have multiple saliva based tests is a good thing… because we do need to test more… the other part of the equation which is often overlooked is the reporting part of the equation.

    so… three/four weeks ago when the 45 admin cut the CDC out of the stats loop also coincided with the HHS mandating changes for all COVID reporting that is currently being produced for our hospitals. Which meant that all of the existing testing now had to include with it additional information regarding how many times folks had been tested, prior results and via what methodology.

    In the world of laboratory testing, its not a case (in most instances) where there just a test and you pick what the specimen type is, most of the tests are actually dependent on what the specimen type is to indicate what laboratory department handles it and via what protocols… (I’m sure lamh36 could go into greater detail) .

    What I’m trying to get at is that having a new, faster, cost-effective test is awesome, just be prepared to have some flex in the numbers as everyone adapts to how this will be reported and the kind of depth and context these actual results may have.,..

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @debbie:

    I never heard of Blaine until very recently, but then I never followed Trump and/or his family during the tabloid years. From what I hear, though, she sounds like a real sweetheart.

  106. 106.

    Aleta

    Lots more comparative data in this short term study, but to me it’s a reminder to not add to the stress of essential workers, etc.  and to go easy on negative replies to commenters here during this election cycle.

    During June 24–30, 2020, a total of 5,412 (54.7%) of 9,896 eligible invited adults completed web-based surveys†† administered by Qualtrics.§§…  … Analyses were stratified by gender, age, race/ethnicity, employment status, essential worker status, unpaid adult caregiver status, rural-urban residence classification, whether the respondent knew someone who had positive test results for SARS-CoV-2… or who had died from COVID-19, and whether the respondent was receiving treatment for diagnosed anxiety, depression, or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the time of the survey.
    —
    Reported symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder (30.9%),

    (Had) TSRD*  symptoms related to COVID-19 (26.3%),

    Reported having started or increased substance use to cope with stress or emotions related to COVID-19 (13.3%)

    Reported having seriously considered suicide in the preceding 30 days (10.7%) (Table 1).

    —-

    At least one adverse mental or behavioral health symptom was reported by respondents

    of age 18–24 years (74.9%)
    of age 25–44 years (51.9%)
    of Hispanic ethnicity (52.1%)
    less than a high school diploma (66.2%)
    essential workers (54.0%)
    unpaid caregivers for adults (66.6%)
    who reported treatment for diagnosed anxiety (72.7%), depression (68.8%), or PTSD (88.0%) at the time of the survey.

    —

    *TSRD = trauma- and stressor-related disorder

  107. 107.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @debbie:

    It can’t be too serious, because Trump  posted a “Whee! Fast!” video yesterday of his motorcade racing up FDR Drive next to a police boat. As he shut down traffic during rush hour.

  108. 108.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mallard Filmore:

    NO! The Nobel Peace Prize must be a lure to get Trump out of the country to a location where he can be arrested and taken to The Hague. 

    Calm your bones.  It can be both.  And they could also threaten to give the peace prize to Obama again just for fun.

  109. 109.

    geg6

    @Martin:

    This.  PSU is using a saliva test and got 100,000 for staff, faculty and students. Not all students are required to take it but most are (seems to depend on the infection rate in their county).  All faculty and staff cleared to work on campus must take it.  They sent them out to all of us and we have to have a zoom call with a nurse practitioner,  fill the vial with spit as they watch (weird and harder than you would think—it’s a lot of saliva to fill that thing) and send it back in a prepaid UPS envelope.  I was told I’d have my results by Monday (took it Thursday and then the weekend interferes).  Students start moving in on Thursday and, if they do not have test results, they cannot move in.  Painless other than trying to work up enough spit after not drinking anything for a half hour before.

  111. 111.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Tokyokie:

    More Than a Vote, a group led by Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, is working with the Los Angeles Dodgers to make Dodger Stadium an official polling place ahead of the November elections, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
    Those who are registered to vote in Los Angeles County will have the ability to park for free at the stadium and vote during a five-day window prior to election day on Nov. 3.
    The New York Times‘ Jonathan Martin reported in June that James had formed More Than a Vote along with stars including Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young and Phoenix Mercury guard Skylar Diggins-Smith. Part of the group’s focus is “inspiring African-Americans to register and to cast a ballot in November.”

  113. 113.

    Mallard Filmore

    @mrmoshpotato:

     

    they could also threaten to give the peace prize to Obama again just for fun.

    Wow! An additional incentive to prod Trump into travelling. Thanks for the smile.

  114. 114.

    jl

    @Ohio Mom: For individual incentives for selfish, do a big PR campaign pointing out it is cheapest quickest way to diagnose v early, avoid death disability and bankruptcy.

  117. 117.

    VeniceRiley

    @geg6: Hope the UPS holds up then.

    Nothing is a game changer until we have effective prevention and therapeutics. In bad news, many clinical trial results have been delyed because overwhelmed doctors having to pull out; and patients not wanting to participate. And, and this is where rapid testing some in, trails with time sensitive starts in disease progression have been foiled by delays in test results. So hopefully this helps in that respect.

    We need point of care tests and results, IMO. And right now.

    PS I hate how NBA connection has resulted in the over-fronting “game changer” of this.

  118. 118.

    Ken

    @Steeplejack (phone): It can’t be too serious, because Trump posted a “Whee! Fast!” video

    Is your case like that LP video, where you just came out of a coma after four years?  Because the rest of us have learned that Trump is a sociopath who would post a “Whee! Fast!” video if all his children had just been eaten by leopards.

  119. 119.

    Ned F.

    @Auntie Anne: I live in Delaware, I did not know this. I know of the test sites, but figured if I won’t know the results for two weeks, there’s not much point.  Do the spit tests in DE have quick results like the NBA one?

  120. 120.

    geg6

    @VeniceRiley:

    They couldn’t trust the USPS (I think what you meant) because mail here in PA has definitely been slowed to a crawl.  So they sprang for UPS.

  121. 121.

    jl

    Apparently big progress in reducing bad outcomes if dx is very early. Not enough to prevent health system crash if you go FL or TX on control, but prolly enough to convince selfish to use it.

  122. 122.

    debbie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I used to watch the local news on the NYC NBC affiliate. Liz Smith had a gabfest segment and more often than not, she had some sort of tidbit about Donald and Ivana. You couldn’t get away from him, even back then.

  123. 123.

    jl

    @VeniceRiley: Probably not one game changer for covid, we’ll have to settle for some base hits… to go baseball. This probably a double if enough people use it. Should be less worry about B Gates chips in ur head when u just spit into a tube. Qanon will think of something, but fewer will bite… I hope

  124. 124.

    Roger Moore

    @germy:

    We’re in a pandemic. Tests should be free. Not fifteen or twenty dollars.

    Even if the tests are free to the person being tested, they still cost money to perform.  Making the tests cheaper for whomever is paying for them is a big deal because it makes it easier to justify broader testing.

  126. 126.

    NotMax

    (person in alley furtively opens trench coat) “Psst. Hey buddy, in the market for a vial of spit?”

    //

  127. 127.

    jl

    @Roger Moore: def should be free. One big difference I’ve noticed in policies between US and successful countries: free testing and dx, either free or hard limits on cost for treatment: either free or fixed relatively low cost, latter in low inequality high median income countries

  128. 128.

    Baud

    Now you’ve got bad blood.

    Taylor Swift on Saturday tore into President Trump, saying he is engaging in a “calculated dismantling” of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and accusing him of trying to “blatantly cheat” the election.

     

    “Trump’s calculated dismantling of USPS proves one thing clearly: He is WELL AWARE that we do not want him as our president,” the pop star wrote on Twitter. “He’s chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.”

  129. 129.

    PAM Dirac

    You can find the the details of this Emergency Use Authorization at FDA. listed as “Yale School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. The table has pdfs for the letter of authorization, which includes any conditions. It also includes the fact sheet for heathcare providers, patients and an overview. Of course this EUA is just the latest, there are 180 entires on the approval list, so there is plenty of details to wade through if you want. Note that this list is just for diagnostics; there is a separate, much shorter list for drug products.

  130. 130.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Does it use the same reagents that are currently in shorty supply?

    If I understand correctly, it does not.  Rather than using an expensive RNA extraction kit, they’re digesting all the protein in the sample with proteinase K, which is cheap, available, and very robust.  I’m a little disappointed, because it looks like they’re still using RT-PCR for their assay, which requires a fairly expensive thermocycler.  There are alternative assays that use isothermal amplification and should be able to make the tests even simpler and cheaper.

  131. 131.

    Martin

    @debbie: These tests are like the nasal swap – they test for presence of the virus. And universities are developing these because it’s one of the better ways to test large numbers of people quickly. For a few reasons:

    1. They require less expertise to administer, so your supply side is constrained simply by getting enough testing kits, not on how many nurses you can round up to stand in a parking lot.
    2. On the processing side, doing individual tests also doesn’t scale great. So another idea is to combine samples. So let’s say your overall positivity rate is 1% – one positive test in a  100. What you could do is combine each test with 15 others.  In one sample you have patients 1-15, and you run that test. You also have each sample mixed with 14 other samples for a second test. So 1 with 16-29, 2 with 30-43, 3 with 44-57, etc. If 1-15 comes back positive and 44-57 comes back positive, then sample 3 was infected. You validate it by testing 3 individually. So you need 3 samples per patient, but you are running about 3 tests per 15 patients  at a 1% infection rate, and you can increase that as the rate drops, unlike the current approach.
    3. The reason universities are doing this is that we aren’t hooked into the patchwork of national patient records systems. This is why universities can’t help with testing right now. But we can pretty easily automate around our patient/staff systems to deliver very rapid results that everyone is very familiar with interacting with now – and in some respects these kinds of tests are slightly easier to build into that infrastructure because you’re replacing this high-touch logistics with a more automated one. This is also why national testing has been so uneven and so difficult to scale
  132. 132.

    Martin

    @Roger Moore: But if the goal is public health, the government should pay for it all. We’re already $3T taxpayer money in, or $10K per person. You can buy a lot of repeated testing per American for that cost, provided you can execute.

    You test for free because in aggregate it’s cheaper. That doesn’t even consider the $5T in lost GDP.

  134. 134.

    Sab

    @Ohio Mom: YES that. My niece by marriage was the first identified case in my county in NE Ohio because her ex was a moron who treated it like an employer paid vacation.

    I really hope this new test works out so we can open schools.

    My step-daughter is trying to be careful but there are limits if you have an autistic six- year old who needs to be socialized, and a Mom with a job that pays the bills. She ( kid) is spending lots of time with her many cousins, but that is NOT SAFE  because what can she (Mom) do with idiot parents.

  137. 137.

    Martin

    @Ned F.: The system various universities are employing are designed for 24 hour turnaround. In fact, that’s the whole point – if it’s taking longer than 24 hours, either you’re collecting more tests than you can process, or you have too much administrative overhead.

    It should never, ever take more than 24 hours to return a test result. It’s not like they need to grow a culture for a week.

  138. 138.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    How the hell do you have an NDA with a government agency?

    Both sides were happy to agree to the NDA because it gave them an excuse to hide how corrupt the deal was.  There’s no way something like that should be able to block Congress from investigating the deal, but the courts are unwilling to do anything.

  140. 140.

    VeniceRiley

    @jl: Speaking of swinging for the fences. Color me disappointed we aren’t persuing manufacturing ramp up NOW of several of these inhaler/diffuser/nebulizer/whatever treatments and pushing out large clinical trials for prevention/asymptomatic/mild Covid. Everyone and all the money is going for hospitalized, by and large, when we could be much further along at stopping the start, in addition to preventing the deaths.

  142. 142.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Geoduck:  Masks are being treated by many people as an absolute defence against catching or passing on the COVID-19 coronavirus, a bit like the folks who think polyester camo makes them bulletproof. This belief is a bad thing.

     

    Evaluating the benefits of large numbers of people wearing random types of mask requires so many qualifications and technical issues it turns their use into mostly a public virtue signal — “Look, I’m wearing a mask! I’m taking this pandemic seriously! You non-mask-wearing people are BAD!” In the worst cases masking encourages people to go out, go shopping, congregate with friends and family and exchange COVID-19 infections while believing they’re invulnerable because they’re wearing a thin cotton fabric mask with a nice pattern they bought off Etsy.

     

    The sorts of masks most of the public wear, badly made and imperfectly fitting, constantly being taken off and put back on again, handled and stuffed in a pocket afterwards aren’t capable of effectively stopping an infectious virus. Healthcare professionals are trained to use properly fitting and properly designed anti-viral masks. They are supervised and monitored while wearing them and some of them still catch the disease, although they are often in a high-risk environment. Then again anyone who catches the disease outside a hospital has been in a high-risk environment, they just didn’t know it at the time.

     

    Masks and tests by themselves won’t stop the spread of this disease. Public wearing of masks will slow down infection rates some but the sorts of masks and mask wearing habits being displayed right now aren’t going to do a lot. In a similar manner tests only tell you if you were infected or not, they don’t stop the spread of the infection no matter how comforting the reports of extra testing can be.

     

    The one thing that works, the thing that broke the first super-wave of infections around the world is lockdown and self-isolation, self-quarantine, hard and long. We can’t do that sort of lockdown twice sadly, not unless things get really bad and this disease isn’t bodies-piled-in-the-streets bad like Ebola could have been (and was in some African countries).

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    trump did one of his press tantrums today, and apparently he’s back at Bedminster for the weekend

    Phyllis @amurderofroses
    Very sniffy today, we haven’t seen it this bad in awhile.

    Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom 19
    Yes, he’s more animated and combative today and more sniffly than last week, when he was kind of zombified

    and look who’s a (maskless) member: Convicted Felon Bernie Kerik.

  144. 144.

    jl

    @VeniceRiley: I don’t know why, but evidence that cheap nonpatent stuff been turned down from on high. The all powerful covid tyrant Tony F been pushing for them but been told  not to fund.

  147. 147.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin:

    I don’t disagree with your calculations.  Unfortunately, the federal government is currently run by nihilists who aren’t going to pay for large-scale testing.  That leaves it up to entities that aren’t allowed to run large deficits to manage things, and that means cost is a really important consideration.

  148. 148.

    PAM Dirac

    @Martin: All NDAs with the government are certainly not illegal. When I worked at NCI we executed thousands of them every year to cover compound testing. I’m sure there are restrictions on exactly what can be in an NDA, but in general, I think proprietary information can be included. There still might be funny business in this particular case, but it would require a more detailed investigation.

  150. 150.

    Sab

    @Sab: Grand-daughter was riding in car with cousin, both in backseat carseats. Step-daughter looked in mirror. Everything okay. Step-daughter looked in back mirror five minutes later and two kids had switched masks.

    Yark!

  151. 151.

    Roger Moore

    @different-church-lady:

    Wearing something over your face is better than nothing.

    This is not necessarily true.  There was a recent study that suggested neck gaiter-type masks may be worse than nothing because they break up larger droplets into aerosols that stay in the air for longer.  It’s only a single study, but it’s at least evidence that a bad mask may be worse than no mask at all, even neglecting the kind of false safety Robert Sneddon was talking about.  OTOH, that same study said that the common double layer cotton masks are almost as good as surgical masks.

  152. 152.

    jl

    @Roger Moore: Some experts with successful field work in previous epidemics… Ranu Dhillon… say the dollar a day home version will work. So 4 all adults 100 B to save multiple T. Bargain!

  156. 156.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator: The Federal government sets up NDAs with companies all the time.

    E.g. https://federallabs.org/t2toolkit/t2-mechanisms/department-of-energy-doe-confidentialitynondisclosure-agreement

    Whether this one is legitimate is another question.  Whether it can prevent Congress from getting answers is yet another question.

    (My guess is that since Congress appropriates the money, there are ways for Congress to get its questions answered, NDA or no.  So, as usual, this is a delaying tactic by Donnie’s minions.)

    IANAL.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  157. 157.

    Robert Sneddon

    @different-church-lady: Staying at home and self-isolating is infinitely better than thinking “I’ll wear a mask, it will be safe to go out for a walk, visit Aunt Mabel and have a cup of tea with her. Cough cough.”

     

    Here’s a BBC article showing the sorts of masks medical staff in high-risk COVID-19 wards in the UK are wearing. If Etsy was selling these, quantity ten million then masks like this worn by the public would have a real effect on the spread of this disease. Sadly the nearest I can get to buying something like this mask over-the-counter is used in the asbestos removal industry and costs several hundred bucks and requires training and expert fitting.

  160. 160.

    VeniceRiley

    @jl: Right. And what I really REALLY don’t get is, when some other first world entity appoves something, why we need to yank the reverse and say “Oh, that looks promising. Let’s start our own clinical trial.” If theirs was valid, just approve the d*mn thing!

  162. 162.

    Steeplejack

    @debbie:

    Ended up ordering the OxiClean carpet stuff from Amazon after I couldn’t find it in my usual stores. Did one test application, results promising, but I haven’t gotten down to serious, repeated application yet.

  164. 164.

    Sab

    @Sab: Doing rhe right thing at home is not easy if you are not retired on social security with no kids. For everyone else, especially with kids its damn near impossible but parents are like otters and they almost always ruder through.

    Except the ones that don’t. My stepdaughter was a bad teenager. She has been a beyond exceptional mother of an autistic child. Without help from us they would both be floundering. If Mom wasn’t undiagnosed on the spectrum her kid wouldn’t have been there.

    I was born into a very upper income  family. I was undiagnosed on the spectrum and my siblings spent fifty years being annoyed and embarrassed  by me. I was uncomfortable but  so were they.

  167. 167.

    jl

    @VeniceRiley: FDA has head up it’s ass in some ways. One is that it is stuck in a clinical framework in evaluating dx, tx, little understanding of disaster response or public health. Toxic mentality in some places to, first reaction to proposals they don’t like is bluff and bully. But if u have good case they come around. But pointless delay is bad when time is lives.

  168. 168.

    JPL

    On one hand Kemp opened a new testing site near the airport and one the other hand most other sites ran out of test.   hmm   At this rate our positive cases will drop also.  A week turn around is good for us.

  169. 169.

    Aleta

    Excuse if this has been mentioned.  Have any reasons been given for the latest shortages of tests?  My suspicious mind jumps like a fish (except fish have reasons;  I don’t) to that very beautiful and smart equation:  More tests =  more cases = more blame of T and JK = very unfair.

  174. 174.

    PAM Dirac

    @VeniceRiley:

     

    when some other first world entity appoves something, why we need to yank the reverse and say “Oh, that looks promising. Let’s start our own clinical trial.” If theirs was valid, just approve the d*mn thing!

    Do you have any examples of that happening? FDA approval is based on data submitted by whoever owns the test/drug/device and th we rexis no barrier at all to submitting the same data to FDA and EU and whoever. They are different agencies covered by different laws, so the decisions aren’t always identical, but when they are different it is usually a borderline case.

    aren’t

  176. 176.

    JPL

    @Aleta: yup..    Death rates continue to climb though.   Although I mentioned this before, the local Fire chief is in ICU on a vent and I wish him well, but he’s also part of a crowd that probably stashed hydroxychloroquine.

  177. 177.

    chopper

    6. Turnaround time. SalivaDirect can be pooled for faster turnaround.

    “awright y’all, everybody just spit in this here bucket”

  178. 178.

    evodevo

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  Yeah – that’s the first thing I thought last month when they said the Orange Mad King was being tested daily – I figured they were lying as usual, because there’s NO WAY they would be able to get him to hold still for this once a day, once he had experienced it for the first time…he’s a HUGE baby, and he wouldn’t be able to take it…much less a finger prick or a blood draw…

  180. 180.

    JPL

    @PIGL: Laws? Which laws?   I think it’s reckless endangerment, but that would be hard to prove.    Of course, if you have HIV that’s different.

  182. 182.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    The Federal government sets up NDAs with companies all the time.

    The CDC previously was committed to being as open as possible with this data.

    The general policy of NDAs may not be good and its specific application here is suspect.

  184. 184.

    jl

    Cheap tx and dx stuff likely to work that may come on line before 2021 just as important as vaccine. Vaccines for closest relatives of covid bug for cows and dogs need to be annual, and R Gallo thinks that is a likely case. So far nothing in phase 3 perfect. One often just keeps bug in your head, so often just makes milder. Much lower chance you die, but will be enough uptake for the holy herd immunity?

  185. 185.

    Another Scott

    @Aleta: No link, but my understanding is that lack of testing is still a consequence of logistics issues – not enough swabs, not enough reagents, not enough testing vials, not enough machines, not enough staff to run the PCR machines.

    Thread: (via HelenBranswell)

    https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1294339275245461504

    […]
    Replying to @DrTomFrieden

    2/22 First, how much Covid is there? I track percent positivity as the least bad indicator. Reported cases are the tip of the iceberg: these cases reflect both how much spread there is and how much testing and reporting there is.

    3/22 Although test positivity decreased slightly, from 7.7 to 7.0, it remains high in much of the country and very high in the South. But there’s a problem. Antigen tests becoming widespread and if not reported, we will lose ability to know of all positive and negative tests.

    4/22 Also, most places report proportion of tests positive. This proportion decreases with less re-testing of positives (generally not needed), & low-risk screening, even if cases don’t decrease. Proportion of patients positive is better, but harder & many places can’t do it yet.

    5/22 Still, test positivity is very useful. See the gray line. Kids ages 5-17 now have the highest positivity rate of all age groups, and seniors (green line) went from highest to lowest. Age groups aren’t islands; spread in any group is a risk to all.

    6/22 Incidence is misleading. Look at Alabama vs. Alaska. Alabama has nearly 3x the reported incidence of Alaska, but Alaska is testing at more than 3x the rate. The actual incidence is likely about 10x higher in Alabama. Test positivity is much more informative.

    […]

    There’s still far too much undetected COVID-19 infections out there.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  187. 187.

    different-church-lady

    @Robert Sneddon: Staying at home and self-isolating means I don’t have income. And I’m not the only one in this predicament.

    If you want to beat people up over having a false sense of security, fine. But don’t blame the damn mask, don’t accidentally discourage people from wearing them, and don’t advocate we all just live in private bio-bubbles for the next two years, because it ain’t realistic.

  189. 189.

    jl

    @PAM Dirac: There have been big high $ drug approval fights over whether populations in other countries really comparable, whether trial standards in other countries high enough. I give examples in health care stats class.

  190. 190.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    all this talk of spit buckets reminds me of an old SNL parody of David Copperfield/Masterpiece theatre, I think with Eric Idle, but nothing coming from a youtube search

  192. 192.

    Auntie Anne

    @Ned F.:  Yes, they do. You get your results within 48 hours, which is not quite as fast as the NBA test, but still PDQ.

  201. 201.

    different-church-lady

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not even a transcript on the invaluable “SNL Transcripts” site. But at least this abstract:

    Summary: Miles Cowperthwaite (Michael Palin) begins his upbringing as a drool handler for Lord Pinkney (Dan Aykroyd).

    Perhaps all for the best it’s not on the web…

    Season 4, episode 10, Jan. 1979. First of two Miles Cowperthwaite sketches that season, so despite the subject matter I guess it couldn’t have been that bad?

  202. 202.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: Does it eat the carpet?  I bought some of that at the beginning of the pandemic, for clothes, but I do have some kitty puke stains.

    What happens if you leave it too long?

  203. 203.

    debbie

    @WaterGirl:

    Sorry, I was referring to the red wine stain. The longer it sits, the tougher it will be to get out.

    I had an impressive stain win last week. I smushed overripe blueberries on a white t-shirt. OxiClean Max Force to the rescue!

  204. 204.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @evodevo: I do remember loving Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber, Medieval Judge… “Broomgilda, take two pints!”

  206. 206.

    Aleta

    @Another Scott: “There’s still far too much undetected COVID-19 infections out there.”

    For example  (August 14, 2020)  Notes from the Field: Seroprevalence Estimates of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Convenience Sample — Oregon, May 11–June 15, 2020

    Through May 31, a total of 4,243 COVID-19 cases in Oregon were confirmed by nucleic acid testing for SARS-CoV-2 … yielding a cumulative COVID-19 incidence of approximately 0.1%.  Because this rate does not account for persons who were infected but did not seek testing (e.g., those with asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic infections), persons who chose not to be tested, or persons unable to access testing, the rate is believed to be lower than the true cumulative COVID-19 incidence in the state.

    A population-based seroprevalence survey can provide estimates of the cumulative incidence of infection more accurately than does nucleic acid testing by identifying additional persons who have had previous infections with SARS-CoV-2 but were not reported as COVID-19 cases. Seroprevalence estimates from several states and geographic areas within the United States vary from 1.0% to 6.9% (1–4). No seroprevalence estimates for SARS-CoV-2 infection are yet available for Oregon.

    To estimate the seroprevalence of infection with SARS-CoV-2 in Oregon, a cross-sectional, population-based convenience sample for SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody testing was collected from mid-May through mid-June …. The facilities’ locations were approximately representative of the geographic distribution of Oregon’s population.  During May 11–June 15, 2020, a total of 898 venous specimens (average from each facility = 47; range = 15–50) were collected from the 19 facilities …

    …
    The estimated seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in a convenience sample of adult Oregonians was approximately 10 times the measured cumulative COVID-19 incidence obtained by nucleic acid testing, consistent with results from seven other U.S. states and geographic areas (4).

    This convenience sample, obtained from patients interacting with health care systems throughout the state, is not necessarily generalizable to the entire state population. Limitations of seroprevalence testing include false positivity in settings of low background prevalence such as Oregon, lack of antibody development by some infected persons, and in others, waning of antibodies to undetectable levels.

    The data suggest that a substantial number of COVID-19 cases in Oregon have gone undiagnosed and not reported and that a large portion of Oregon’s population remains susceptible to COVID-19 infection.

  207. 207.

    Calouste

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I hope that if there’s a debate and a moderator asks “Do you have anything good to say about your opponent, Biden replies with “No. 200,000 Americans are dead because the man over there denied reality and didn’t take action. No, I don’t have anything good to say about him. “

  208. 208.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: I bought it for clothes and haven’t used it yet.

    Blueberries, that’s impressive!

    I call my niece the stain nazi – is she going to have to share her title with you?  (It’s a term of endearment, but as I look at it in print, it seems kind of odd, doesn’t it!)

  210. 210.

    ballerat

    @Auntie Anne: Oh.

    I have heard and read I don’t know how many media pieces on Melania Trump’s White House rose garden remodel, and fucking jack shit nothing on Delaware’s now 2 month old implementation of a covid spit test breakthrough.

    Villago Delendo Est was right all along. Wipe these fucking media courtesans out. Wipe them all out.

  211. 211.

    ballerat

    @oatler.:

    Thick white slob bigots all mad and shit because they going the way of the neanderthal.

    Definitely NOT the high speed low drag operators they imagine themselves to be on facebook.

    Eastern michigan doesn’t have any finer to offer. In fact, the thumb militias are even dumber which is hard to imagine but even bigotier, which is also hard to imagine but if you know the region, unsurprising.

    I had to spend time in Forsyth County, Ga., to meet their match.

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