So the information doesn’t really matter.
In Sweden once they change tactics from trying to track each and every case, and who they might have gotten it from etc, to a a strategy more about just accepting that it’s spreading and trying to limit the spread in general, and protect the weak. Then they also stopped doing testing here.
Unless you are in a risk group, the test doesn’t really make a difference.
If the test is positive, you can self-quarantine and notify everyone you've been in contact with that they need testing. Then any one of those people that tests positive can do the same thing, etc. etc.
If you don't do any testing, you end up with a bunch of positive but asymptomatic carriers wandering around unknowingly infecting other people.
South Korea is taking this approach and they seem to be doing a lot better than most other countries.
So unless you have the lab infrastructure in place already (I don't know how it is in Japan), you can't really invent it out of thin air in the midst of a crisis.
The truth is that neoliberal ideology all around the globe did its best to make hospitals and health systems "more economic" by cutting (at the time) unneeded capacities, without any real concern about the resillience of the system as a whole. This is (aside from timing and culture) where you see the main difference between nations today. This is e.g. why Spain decided the privatization of their hospitals was a grave mistake.
There is a HUGE cost to "shelter-in-place". People's businesses and jobs depend on customers going out and using their services, and without customers, they won't have jobs, business will fail, and people will get hurt, and die. (Hopefully fewer now that Trump's doing a bail out.)
Shelter-in-place may be the right thing to do, now that that containment has failed, because people will get hurt and die otherwise, but containment wasn't doomed to failure from the start. It's wrong to frame it that way. It's like running for the bus. You don't have to run as fast as a bus can possibly, you only have to run fast enough to catch it before it leaves the bus stop.
Containment isn't supposed to last forever, it lasts as long as it lasts. It absolutely required far more aggressive action to be successful, and one of those was testing. Which we dropped the ball on.
It would matter to me. If I know I have it, I would stay at home and have somebody else do shopping and leave stuff in front of the door. If I dont know that, I do shopping by myself.
Having it or not is also difference between whether one can join one of those programs where young people shop for elderly and leave stuff in front of the door. Of course the caution must be taken with everyone, but also those with confirmed case are out.
It makes difference for people who still have to go to work.
Even official expectations on people with corronavirus are different then on others.
This, right here. The entire world is struggling to get enough testing supplies. Testing somebody who's experiencing mild symptoms takes away from testing cases that are much more important - because part of what is happening right now is that everybody with a light fever is all "I GOT THE COVIDS" and wants a test.
Fact of the matter: We don't have enough tests, worldwide. We can't produce them fast enough. We need to triage.
If the the available number increased to the level where everyone with symptoms could be tested, would you favor doing so? and do you think that governments should push til enough tests are available to do that?
Probably yes to the latter, unless it takes away resources we need more urgently elsewhere.
But really, what we need to do is depress the count of infected people to a point where it's even feasible to test everybody with symptoms.
Even if we rolled out testing to a point where we can test 1M/day (I think it's 200K/day right now?), it'd take a year to test all of the US. If we're in flu-prevalence territory, that's only 19M, and so suddenly much more doable.
And at that level, we need the ability to both test anybody with symptoms and to conduct random samplings of asymptomatic people, because without that, we couldn't lift shelter-in-place until we have a vaccine. That's... a tad long.
So, more tests, plus suppression doing its job. And it'd be lovely if our government would push to get anything done, really. They've wasted 8 weeks by now, at least. Coordinated response is allowed to kick in any day, by my book.
If the test could be done yourself, at home, then I would agree with you.
You don't need to know, the immediate doctor telling you to wait and see at home doesn't need to know, but the government absolutely needs to know.
But the idea that the information won't be used is nonsense. It's invaluable for the overall response. We have only the vaguest of ideas how many people (in the U.S.) are infected. The more information we have about cases with few or no symptoms, the more we can understand the spread and take appropriate measures (that will also be more obviously justified, countering people who claim overreaction).
More accurate information about symptoms would also help individual people:
- help them understand that they can feel fine and still be getting other people sick
- help them have an accurate picture of contracting the disease, instead of leaving it to nightmares
There's no universe where having more information about the situation would not be better.
Either it's due to Olympics, or just logistics. Will the Olympics even happen if Japan is declared "OK" but many guest nations still have sick people?
Coronavirus is a virus after all, just like the flu, there is no medication. You can only treat the symptoms, but not the virus itself (as opposed to a bacterial infection where you can attack the bacteria with antibiotics).
So with these undeniable facts it's fairly simple, if your symptoms are so mild that you can cure it out at home without special medical equipment like a ventilator, then you don't need testing. You just have to self isolate yourself for two weeks, get over it and afterwards you are fine and not contagious, so no way of further transmission and therefore no need to test.
If however you develop severe symptopms and need hospitalisation, then they have to test you so they know if they need to isolate you in hospital away from other patiens and protect staff or if you can get a bed amongst everyone else. That is really the only reason.
Your treatment in or outside hospital does not change at all whether you have breathing difficulties because of COVID-19 or any other influenza.
So that is it.
From a public health perspective, if you have any symptoms, be it covid-19 or flu, just isolate yourself for the health of others.
You can treat flu (influenza) with osetalmivir. People with mild symptoms can still be at risk, further testing is needed [1]
Please just phone your emergency line if you suspect you may have it.
If you are already infected, a vaccine is not useful.
But regardless, there is no approved treatment for COVID.
Gilead's new antiviral looks promising, and the Chloroquine/Azithromycin combo looks promising, too, but the first isn't approved for any use yet, and the second is an uncertain off-label use, so in either case, you aren't going to get those treatments unless the alternative is likely death, if you can get them them at all.
They were talking about having a televised only Olympics which might work if there were enough countries with athletes willing to fly to Japan.
Here is their vlog on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2E1t3yMXgE
The husband describes his experience with temperature and thermometers in the first 5 minutes. The similarity to your symptoms begins at ~ 5:00.
This whole video is worth an investment of 38 minutes. 5M+ views.
1. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00386/japan-gripped-by...
"Almost all infected people we interviewed, and this applies to a good two thirds, described a loss of smell and taste lasting several days."
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/gesundheit/coronavi...
But I can generally taste things, so this is good to know.
I have read that a few of the "common cold" infections are also caused by different species of "corona virus" so this is perhaps not too surprising.
My sense is that the vast majority of the healthy population shouldn't get tested even if they might have the virus because the infrastructure doesn't support widespread testing (anywhere -- as far as I know). They should act as if they have the virus and stay home, rest, drink a lot of water, and take NSAIDs if the pain gets out of hand.
I've been sick since last week (much improved yesterday and today) and it could definitely be covid-19. But there's no point in trying to get tested. If I felt the symptoms were serious (significant difficulty breathing) then I'd go to an ER or call 911.
Also, 37.5 is a fairly low fever.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammat...
do take paracetamol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsteroidal_anti-inflammatory...
3/17 is kind of an outlier, because there were too many tests for those who were in close contact with suspected carriers.
- More likely to strictly adhere to the lockdown - Post recovery / quarantine period, if (big IF) you now have immunity and aren’t risking infecting others anymore, you could be more productive in the world.
- Helping others with their food/supplies/whatever. Heck, even spending more money on take out food which helps the economy.
The idea of building up a herd immunity seems to me to require knowing who has the immunity so we know when we have enough.
Could be hayfever. 花粉症の時期が始まったからね。
1. the symptoms with fever of 37.5 degrees or more continue for 4 days or more (for the eldery and those with underlying disease, "4 days" becomes "2 days")
2. you have strong laxity (malaise) or breathlessness (dyspnea), or you have underlying diseases (diabetes, heart failure, respiratory diseases (such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease))
I don't meet the first condition, so I was refused to take a test, but I still have chest tightness and consistent coughing. I wonder where the number "37.5" comes from, and 4 squeal days!? If the article in question is true, these two conditions are totally meaningless.
So why is taking a PCR test so hard in Japan? Most people believe it is due to Olympic. The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, still believes we can hold Olympic as planned at this point. To that end, they want to hide the case of infection as possible. I feel strong anger towards my government since they care more about Olympic than human lives.
At this point, Olympic will be inevitably postponed. I hope my government is smart enough to loosen the conditions and let people to take PCR tests immediately…