Pandemic
One of the lessons Mitch McConnell has learned very well is that if he waits out bad news, he might get a lucky break. @SpeakerPelosi knows this as well, but seems not quite as good at it. Neither give a damn about the poor and that means further relief will have to wait.
— David Benfell, Ph.D. (@n4rky) April 20, 2020
Antibody tests, which only might show some immunity to COVID-19,[1] were rushed into production and distribution. Many are unreliable.[2] And I’m guessing it’s going to be real hard to know if you’ve got a reliable one or an unreliable one.
Here the problem is with false positives, where a person is reported to possess antibodies to the novel coronavirus when, in fact, they do not.[3] The problem with the swab test is with false negatives, reporting a person to be clear of COVID-19, when they are not.[4]
This likely directly undermines[5] the study reported by the Guardian that suggested that COVID-19 had infected more people than previously believed.[6]
There’s a real rush here to achieve twin goals of Donald Trump’s reelection[7] and of limiting the number of human sacrifices to the capitalist god.[8] But what we’re seeing is that there are reasons science is often slow and that, to all appearances at least right now, we aren’t getting out of this crisis fast.
Steve Eder, Megan Twohey, and Apoorva Mandavilli, “Antibody Test, Seen as Key to Reopening Country, Does Not Yet Deliver,” New York Times, April 19, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/us/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html
- [1]Christie Aschwanden, “Sorry, Immunity to Covid-19 Won’t Be Like a Superpower,” Wired, April 16, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/sorry-immunity-to-covid-19-wont-be-like-a-superpower/↩
- [2]Steve Eder, Megan Twohey, and Apoorva Mandavilli, “Antibody Test, Seen as Key to Reopening Country, Does Not Yet Deliver,” New York Times, April 19, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/us/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html↩
- [3]Steve Eder, Megan Twohey, and Apoorva Mandavilli, “Antibody Test, Seen as Key to Reopening Country, Does Not Yet Deliver,” New York Times, April 19, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/us/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html↩
- [4]Christopher Weaver, “Questions About Accuracy of Coronavirus Tests Sow Worry,” Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/questions-about-accuracy-of-coronavirus-tests-sow-worry-11585836001↩
- [5]Steve Eder, Megan Twohey, and Apoorva Mandavilli, “Antibody Test, Seen as Key to Reopening Country, Does Not Yet Deliver,” New York Times, April 19, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/us/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html↩
- [6]Kari Paul, “Antibody study suggests coronavirus is far more widespread than previously thought,” Guardian, April 17, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/antibody-study-suggests-coronavirus-is-far-more-widespread-than-previously-thought↩
- [7]Aaron Blake, “The timeline of Trump’s coronavirus response is increasingly damning,” Washington Post, April 7, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/07/timeline-trumps-coronavirus-response-is-increasingly-damning/; Adam Cancryn and Nancy Cook, “Health officials want Trump to ‘double down, not lighten up’ restrictions,” Politico, March 23, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/23/coronavirus-economy-trump-restart-145222; Matt Zapotosky et al., “Trump administration pushing to reopen much of the U.S. next month,” Washington Post, April 9, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trump-reopen-us-economy/2020/04/09/10d42b4a-7a7b-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html↩
- [8]David Benfell, “The capitalist death cult,” Not Housebroken, March 27, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/03/27/the-capitalist-death-cult/; David Benfell, “An impatient capitalist god demands human sacrifice. Now,” Not Housebroken, April 17, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/04/15/an-impatient-capitalist-god-demands-human-sacrifice-now/↩