After those recommendations from Dr. Fauci about eye protection, I might go with a full helmet…
Even he can’t say it: someone might “interpret” the recommendations wrong, i.e. read them and follow them.
11 Likes
Tom Cruise: a lot of people need to die so that we can have more Mission Impossible sequels.
10 Likes
Oh, the “This mask is to protect me, I could care less about you” masks. Kinda surprised he is wearing one at all. I figured his Thetan level would protect him from anything up to and including Xenu himself.
12 Likes
He probably believes that, but he also has to sell the industry that allows him to help fund his church, and that means appealing to those of us who don’t believe in his church.
8 Likes
Probably just a boon to movie company marketing departments, but good for the reviewers:
Hey, now they can shift all of their money to marketing and waste none on making a good movie.
9 Likes
From Derek Lowe’s blog:
Word came yesterday that Abbott received an Emergency Use Authorization for a new coronavirus test, one that is faster and cheaper than anything currently out there.
Apparently, they think they can get the cost per test down to $5 in quantity, and it reads out in 15 minutes with no special equipment - it’s basically the same platform that home pregnancy tests use. They claim a sensitivity of 97.1% (positive results detected when there should have been a positive) and a specificity of 98.5% (negative results when there should indeed have been a negative).
Derek correctly points out the dangers of the base rate fallacy:
If you tried to deploy this test across a large asymptomatic population with a very low true infection rate – everybody in New Zealand, for example – you would create turmoil. New Zealand’s real infection rate is vanishingly small, but Abbott’s quick $5 test would read out a false positive You Are Coronavirused for 1.5% of the whole country, never lower, which would be a completely misleading picture that would cause all sorts of needless trouble.
But he points out that for testing under conditions with a high index of suspicion, a quick test is likely to be a big win.
The delays in the RT-PCR testing have been killing its usefulness in too many cases – what good is knowing that you tested negative sometime last week, really? Far worse, what good is knowing that you tested positive last week if you didn’t isolate yourself because you weren’t sure if it was the coronavirus or not? But an answer in fifteen minutes, that’s actionable. As long as this test is deployed correctly, it can be very useful.
Read the whole thing.
14 Likes
Note, not Ratel’s words, from a linked article
I’ve found that people who wear these - and I’ve seen/met quite a few - genuinely don’t know the problem with them and may have had them in the toolbox or painting kit, or whatever. They do LOOK more serious than the disposable blue ones. My elderly father wore one for a while, months ago now, with only the best intentions.
Yes, of course, everyone should know better at this stage, for sure, but hell we’re dealing with a situation where significant percentages of populations worldwide are actively denying and fighting against mask-wearing… ugh, just typing that is making me feel sick.
8 Likes
My theory is that these kind of masks have the “tacticool” look that says “I mean business” without considering the actual effect of having a flapper valve allowing unfiltered exhalation for whatever funky respiratory droplets you happen to be generating. For the most part I write it off to ignorance rather than evil, but YMMV.
17 Likes
Am I wrong, or are those numbers still better than the tests that take (in AZ at least) up to two weeks? Obviously NZs use case would be radically different from ours (only people suspected because of a contact trace), but doing blanket testing with that in the US could make a huge difference. Would with different leadership.
5 Likes
Tom Cruise is a multimillionaire. He has staff. It’s evil.
10 Likes
If those numbers hold up, they would be pretty much better than anything we are currently fielding. But that is a HUGE if.
6 Likes
Quite agreed, it’s hopefully a user-education issue, and luckily it’s an easy concept to explain. In my small sample set, people wearing them have done so because they think masks are good, and once they grok why these masks are NOT good, they get it 
Wish everyone felt the same.
Yes, they do look “serious”, for various values of “serious” and I can certainly imagine Mr. Cruise perceiving them as military chic, or whatever.
6 Likes
Oh he is evil. Mask issues or not, he is evil. I suspect he picked it because it looks cool and fits his “image” rather than any factual knowledge on his part. I’m not certain he has any of that anyway.
12 Likes
Yup, pretty much that…
16 Likes
Depends on where you are in the US. In several Northeastern states, the base rate is low enough that about 50% of your positive test results would be false if you used it as a screening test in the general population.That’s worse than useless - see how consensus is gradually building, for instance, how the health consequences of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of prostate cancer are worse that those of the disease going undetected without a PSA test.
Yes, definitely a huge ‘if’. As you’re fond of observing, WDKS.
Nevertheless, I’m amazed RT-PCR ever generates useful results in the clinic. There are exonucleases absolutely everywhere. To do useful RNA retrieval from in surgical path specimens, you basically have to have the surgeon cut a sample and dunk it in liquid nitrogen right away, or all the RNA will be chewed up on the way to the path lab.
Yeah, I know, the RNA in a virus particle is protected by the capsid. In theory. Making RT-PCR actually work in the lab is a real headache in practice. Conventional PCR is much easier because DNA is much more stable. Antigen detection depends on the stability of the epitope but you can often get good epitope retrieval even from formalin-fixed specimens.I expect that protein-based assays are where we’ll be moving in the intermediate- to long-term.
9 Likes
They appear to be walking that one back:
14 Likes
Even this horrible asshole gets it.
That change reportedly came “from the top down,” and was not written by the CDC but was, according to the Times and CNN, imposed on the agency by higher-ups within the administration.
13 Likes
The earstraps look like they may be painful when worn for a long time. 3m 6200 respirator with 6035 P3/N100 filters is a way better investment, especially since it’s only 30$. No fan needed, because breathing resistance is almost nonexistent. I use it (6300 version) in my workshop and wearing it for 12 hours is not a problem.
Why not both?
aliexpress.com/item/32806906111.html
The additional benefit is that you can wear a surgical mask under the hood, thus protecting others. As a bonus it has terrifyingly medical look which helps with social distancing.
7 Likes
UVA has developed a mass spec based test that they are quite proud of, but I have yet to see detailed description of the mechanism or sensitivity/specificity. The turn-around is ~24 hours when everything is going well, but there are frequent problems with reagent supplies. IMHO, we are still at the “fake it until you make it” stage. I take encouragement where I can get it, because it seems to be in pretty short supply.
13 Likes
